Dec. 16, 1980 review: Memorial screening of "Magical Mystery Tour" at Shea's Buffalo

A week after his tragic death, an odd tribute.

Dec. 16, 1980 review

For Lennon Fans, Film Is Part of His Legacy

          After a week of grief over the death of John Lennon, the 700-plus fans who gathered in Shea's Buffalo Monday night to see the Beatles' 1967 film "Magical Mystery Tour" seemed more in the mood to celebrate.

          More than an hour before the projector started rolling, they lingered good-naturedly in the lobby, sipping the free glass of wine that came with the price of admission, nibbling at the trays of cheese and keeping half an ear on the borrowed sound system, which blared Beatles hits and interviews from the balcony.

          Some had been at Sunday's vigil for Lennon in Delaware Park. Many had been shaken deeply by his murder. All had been touched somehow by his life and his music.

          WGR deejay Shane seemed to strike the right note as he introduced the film, saying that we have not lost all of John Lennon as long as his music survives and how this occasion should celebrate "the world we all hope for, living with each other in peace someday."

          "Magical Mystery Tour" is the least-known, least-shown Beatles film. Sixth minutes long, shot on videotape, intended for TV, it's full of arty camera angles and quick cuts, a cross between the wacked-out humor of the Goon Show and the pre-taped pieces groups make these days for televised rock shows.

          It starts out with great promise, the Beatles off aboard this brightly colored bus with all these British tourist types. Ringo brings his fat Aunt Jessica. The crusty Buster Bloodvessel falls in love with her. Fantasy and funning abound.

          Lennon, of course, was cheered loudly whenever the camera found him. In one scene, he unsuccessfully tries a guessing game with a pre-teen girl. In another, he's a slick-haired waiter dumping cake on fat Aunt Jessica's table with a shovel.

          But it's all scattershot comedy. Scenes are quickly milked for laughs and abandoned. In other Beatles films, the quartet plays protagonists. Here they're remote figures. Stardom has anesthetized them.

          As they cakewalk in white tuxedos down the big stairway for "Your Mother Should Know," the movie's ambivalence between high seriousness and high mockery hangs suspended for one moment of belief.   Then, without warning, the final credits flash. Like the Beatles, like John Lennon, the end arrives too soon.

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IN THE PHOTO: Film poster for "Magical Mystery Tour."

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FOOTNOTE: Tucked into a corner below the review was this Associated Press story datelined New York:

          "Yoko Ono has sent her blessings and thanks to the hundreds of thousands around the world who kept a silent vigil of affection and respect for her slain husband, ex-Beatle John Lennon.

          "In a five-line statement sent to news media Monday, the widow told those who observed the 10-minute vigil on Sunday:

          "Bless you for your tears and prayers.

          "I saw John smiling in the sky.

          "I saw sorrow changing into clarity.

          "I saw all of us becoming one mind.

          "Thank you."

          The note was signed, "Love, Yoko." 

Dec. 15, 1980 review: Dr. Demento at Harvey & Corky's Stage One

 

By 1980, wacky California-based musicologist Barry Hansen, a/k/a Dr. Demento, was entering his peak years. He was heard on hundreds of stations, including 97 Rock here in Buffalo, which played his show on Sunday evenings.

Dec. 15, 1980 review

Loony Tunes from Dr. Demento

          With his tall top hat, his formal coat and beard, Dr. Demento resembles a 19th century patent medicine salesman as he peers over a large black box containing his turntables on stage in Harvey and Corky's Stage One in Clarence Sunday night.

          The host of the nation's most popular syndicated radio show is on tour, celebrating his 10th anniversary by dispensing generous quantities of his famous elixir – dementia, the musical variety.

          There's plenty on the Dr. Demento Song Ballot, which is distributed at the door. It's up to the 150 fans out there to choose the evening's Funny Five, which turn out to be Frank Zappa's " **** and Beer," Monty Python's "Lumberjack Song," a parody of the Carpenters called "Hamster Love," the maudlin "Dead Puppies" and "Gilligan's Island," which spoofs Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."

          Also on the list are a couple numbers – "Junk Food Junkie" and "Shaving Cream" – which went from Dr. Demento's show to become nationwide novelty hits.

          And then there's Weird Al Yankovic's takeoffs on pop hits "My Sharona," "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" and "Another One Bites the Dust," in which the doctor himself provides some odd glottal stops.

          It turns out that Buffalo has made two significant contributions to the doctor's dementia. A former Buffalonian, Steven Segal, better known as Obscene Steven Clean, first invited this unconventional musicologist to play his oddball records on a freeform FM rock station in Los Angeles.

          The doctor serves up one of the records he played that first night – "Transfusion," a weird 1956 hit from an Oakland trucker calling himself Nervous Norvus. "Slip the blood to me, bud," Nervous says in an aside. This was the record that got people calling him demented.

          The second Buffalo connection is John Valby, the outrageously raunchy piano player who's something of a local legend. The doctor spins one of his numbers (title unmentionable) and plans to scour the record stores here for Valby's album.

          He also plays Spike Jones and Tom Lehrer, Allen Sherman and Monty Python, profane tapes of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis trying to tape a commercial for "The Caddy." He plays with his props too. Flashing sunglasses. A ray gun. Whistles.

          Between funny records, he rolls funny film. "Bambi Meets Godzilla." Abbott and Costello doing "Who's on First." A 1932 Betty Boop cartoon set to music by Louis Armstrong. The uncensored version of "Fish Heads," which ran on "Saturday Night Live." Ronald Reagan introducing the voluptuous Jayne Mansfield at a Hollywood awards ceremony.

          It's all wickedly amusing. The crowd roars its approval throughout the 90-minute set. When it's over, the doctor signs autographs on his personal prescription slips. His recommendation: "Stay demented.:

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IN THE PHOTO: Undated publicity photo of Dr. Demento, probably from the 1980s. 

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FOOTNOTE: Setlist.fm reports that it doesn’t have enough data to calculate an average Dr. Demento setlist for 1980. At his peak, he was heard on more than 150 stations and released numerous compilations of novelty songs. Holder of a master’s degree in folklore and ethnomusicology from UCLA, he went totally online in 2010 and kept creating new shows for subscribers until two months ago, retiring on his 55th anniversary. He’s still providing prescriptions for hilarity at his website at drdemento.com, where hundreds and hundreds of his shows are archived and available.

As for his Buffalo connections, Obscene Steven Clean was a pioneering underground radio host in Boston and then in Los Angeles. He introduced listeners to Barry Hansen on his show on KMET and gave him his nickname. He died in October 2022.

John Valby is alive and well and still pounding out endlessly lewd choruses of “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie.”

Dec. 12, 1980: Gusto Tribute to John Lennon

 

Everybody had a favorite Beatle. Mine was John. His death was devastating.

Dec. 12, 1980 Gusto tribute

For John Lennon, mere stardom wasn't the point.

          Perhaps the extraterrestrial villain Ming the Merciless has taken control of earthly affairs, just as he demonstrated on his pushbutton panel in the "Flash Gordon" film. Earthquakes, volcanos, financial cataclysms, starving refugees, petty wars and Russian troops camped on the Polish borders.

          If not Ming, then what sent an angel of death flying halfway around the world to keep an appointment with John Lennon Monday night? Was the accused Mark David Chapman hearing voices?

          Had it been any other former Beatle, the grief wouldn't have been as severe. Certainly the loss of chipper Paul McCartney would be profoundly saddening. The passing of mystic-gone-Hollywood George Harrison would inspire a somber shiver. And the effervescent Ringo Starr would be a quick fizz in "People in the News."

          But John Lennon was the mainspring of the Fab Four. Without him, there wouldn't have been the Beatles. He founded the band, he was the nominal leader and when the breakup came at the end of the '60s, it was because John couldn't see the point in taking the Beatles concept any farther.

          His cynical wit was forever scorching the candy-fluff facade of popular music, both in his lyrics (consider the offhand "then I lit a fire" at the close of "Norwegian Wood") and in his public statements. The Beatles were in it for the money, he said. Elvis Presley never put it quite as plainly as that. But it turned out to be much more.

          The Beatles unexpectedly tapped into the wellspring of hope and idealism that bubbled in the post-World War II generation. They blew apart old social structures with their hair, their clothes, their attitudes and their experimental lifestyles. Their music became a continual adventure in discovery, each record daring to go where pop songs previously feared to tread.

          Their most significant breakthrough, however, was the way they changed the role of the popular singer. The Beatles proved that popstars could be artists too and, as artists, they could have integrity. Integrity is always on the line. There's more than irony at the end of "Get Back" when John chuckles, "I hope we passed the audition."

          By achieving creative control over their records and financial control over their affairs, the Beatles set a pattern popstars have followed ever since. This and the maniac fun of their first film, "A Hard Day's Night," made becoming a rock 'n roll star respectable and stunningly attractive. Thousands upon thousands got guitars and learned how to play, even as John Lennon was discovering that the dream wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

          Being spokesman for a generation turned into an awesome responsibility. Worldwide acclaim became an endless hassle, a trap which he was determined to escape. He began by seeking a higher consciousness, first via Eastern mystics, then by casting his fate with Yoko Ono, one of the few women in the world he could approach as an artistic equal.

          With Yoko, he finally found the love he'd sung about. Together they took up the cause of peace and understanding in an ear wrenched with Cold War tensions and the heat of Vietnam. John's retreat, first from the Beatles, then from stardom and ultimately from the recording studio, was his way – and perhaps the only way – of easing the pressures and establishing a balance in his life.

          Somehow this was revolutionary too, turning his back on the merry-go-round and cleaving closely to Yoko and their son. In the Me Decade of the '70s, John Lennon the house-husband was demonstrating the nobility of giving oneself to home and family.

          When he and Yoko re-entered the recording studio this year, the subsequent album, "Double Fantasy," was briming with the peaceful strength of this devotion. After all those years of aspiration, anger and controversy, it seemed John Lennon has discovered the key to life on this mortal plane. Just as he once put up billboards announcing, "Peace is here, if you want it," he was ready to got forth and tell the world it could do likewise.

          Like others in history who set out to let the world in on a cosmic vision, he's been silenced before he could finish. He leaves a formidable testament. The rest is up to us. And if you're behind this, Emperor Ming, then we've got a score to settle.

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IN THE PHOTO: Uncredited photo of John Lennon from November 1980. 

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FOOTNOTE: Dale Anderson’s Sunday Brunch, my radio show on WZIR-FM (Wizard 98.5), ran from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sundays, which meant that I was on the air to observe the 10 minutes of silence that Yoko Ono had requested as a tribute at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 14. I spent part of those wordless 10 minutes shedding tears.

A great regret revisited: Buckingham Nicks

One of the great regrets of my wayward years as a young music critic is giving away my promotional copy of the Buckingham Nicks album, the 1973 debut effort from the duo who went on to make superstars out of Fleetwood Mac. At the time, though, who could blame me? It tanked commercially, I didn't love it enough to even review it and I was running out of space on the concrete-block shelves in my third-floor garret apartment. It didn't take long, though, for it to become a cult item, a collectible, which only added to my dismay. 

How come I missed it? Well, it was buried under an avalanche of great music that year -- Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions," Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy," the Allman Brothers' "Brothers and Sisters" and Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," along with David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane," Steely Dan's "Countdown to Ecstasy" and Billy Joel's "Piano Man," just to mention a few. Nevertheless, a seven-minute track called "Frozen Love" caught the ear of Mick Fleetwood and he invited them into what up until then was a low-profile band. 

Inflating the cult status of the Buckingham Nicks album over the years was the fact that it had never been re-released on CD. That blessed event finally happened a couple months ago, thanks to Rhino Records and the resolution of disputes over who owned what on the original recording. Like someone hoping to run into an old flame at a high school reunion, I couldn't wait to find out what I've been missing. Was this truly a lost treasure? 

The answer is not in the early tracks -- a couple charming but off-the-mark pop tunes (Nicks' "Crying in the Night" and Buckingham's "Without a Leg to Stand On") and some splashy Buckingham guitar in the instrumental "Stephanie." Then along comes a familiar downward chord progression and an irresistible melody. "Crystal" is more than a song. It's an incantation. It's a tidal wave of love, the water imagery rising up from somewhere deep beyond comprehension. The reason it sounds so familiar is that it also appeared on that first album they did with Fleetwood Mac, the self-titled one, and it invites you to immerse yourself in its clearwater fountains again and again and again.  

I wasn't much of a fan of Fleetwood Mac either back then. When they came to the Century Theater in June 1975, right before the release of that breakthrough album, freelancer Jim Bisco was the one who reviewed them for The Buffalo Evening News, noting: "Two newer members are sexy Stevie Nicks, who handles some vocals and sways her hips to the music the rest of the time, and Lindsey Buckingham, who attracted the most attention with some dazzling feats on lead guitar." 

When they returned to the Century in October, just as that new album was breaking into the Billboard Top 10, I was there. This time the place sold out fast. Even though they took the stage 50 minutes behind schedule, "they're so potent it no longer matters how late it is," I wrote. "New guitarist Lindsey Buckingham is one reason. The other is new vocalist Stevie Nicks. She's blonde like (Christine) McVie, with black veils for sleeves and a top hat. ... She buzzes and strains with intensity. 'It's about a witch,' she blurts as the dark chords rise for a chilling masterpiece called 'Rhiannon.' It zaps the full-house crowd, suddenly and unexpectedly. Even Fleetwood Mac is surprised."