Project Bagism

bagism

John Lennon and Yoko Ono's concept of a peaceful world. If everyone wore a bag over them there wouldn't be anything to hate about them.

John : What’s Bagism? It’s like...a tag for what we all do, we’re all in a bag ya know, and we realised that we came from two bags, I was in this pop bag going round and round in my little clique, and she was in her little avant-garde clique going round and round, and you’re in your little tele clique and they’re in their...ya know? and we all sort of come out and look at each other every now and then, but we don’t communicate. And we all intellectualize about how there is no barrier between art, music, poetry... but we’re still all - I’m a rock and roller, he’s a poet... so we just came up with the word so you would ask us what bagism is, and we’d say WE’RE ALL IN A BAG BABY!

Out of the bag of the urban dictionary is the definition of Bagism that leads into my story. Early last Summer my friend Karen arrived at my house with a bag she made out of an advertisement for the Fab Faux Radio City show. It was very cool, very crafty and very unique, a genuine conversation piece. Soon after I was asked to become involved as Director of Artist Relations for the 30^th Annual John Lennon Tribute held last Friday night. Along with my responsibilities I felt I wanted to try to figure out some way to gift the artists with something memorable. It was a personal desire however I’ve been involved with enough shows to know that many times artists are gifted by fans and promoters with things that get left behind. It’s not because the gifts are not thoughtful but I think more because it can be a hectic night, dressing rooms get packed up quick and it becomes routine to be given………Anyway, I tried to think of something that artists would take and knew for a fact it should involve chocolate (or food in general) and be ‘Unique’. In thinking of who the performers were and as more were added to the bill it was apparent to me that many of them I had grown up listening to and loving. Some of them I love and had shared their own influences with my own music background. Although I studied classical music my bible was my Rolling Stone Magazines most of which I still have~except for the couple my sister stole when I moved out. The Rolling Stones became the focus of my BAGISM. For Jackson Browne, his bag was a picture with a review of a Capital Theatre Show in 1974. Shelby Lynne’s bag pictured Kris Kristofferson, Keb’ Mo’s featured Buddy Miles, Claudia Marshall received one of the few color bags, a Rolling Stones advertisement for Exile on Main Street. One of my favorites was for Bettye Lavette. It featured a great shot of James Brown, in a red jumpsuit. The review was titled, “Out of the Brown Bag”. When I gave it to her I received a hug and it really was one of my many happy moments of the evening. The bags were all given individually, upon arrival and contained a candy bar which was wrapped like the nights All Access pass, another BAG, of Karen’s kick ass granola, the stage schedule and my card if they needed anything on site. It turned out to be an outta site experience and I did check. All the Bags were taken so I’m smiling. To be able to give something little to artists that have shared so much with me was really a wonderful part of my job.

My own version of Bagism………..