Keith Richards' "Life"

Who else is psyched for this? Great reviews so far...my favorite tidbit is this he refers to Mick throughout as "Brenda" and "Her Majesty"

i'm way psyched

keith richards is psyched

yeah, he could use the cash, I'm sure

my copy's arriving tomorrow and i'm veerrry psyched. Excerpts in Rolling Stone (eh...) a couple weeks back sold me.

Aha! I knew there was a thread on here somewhere. Now I can stop derailing the Favorite Rolling Stones thread, lol.

Halfway through this and I fucking love it. Really enjoyed the picture he painted of his childhood; I honestly didn't know a lot about his background...there's something about that relatively steady upbringing that seems to feed the levelheaded tone of the book. Lots of outlandish goings on but he doesn't puff himself up a whole lot...and it's nice to see how eager he is to give credit to Mick, or Charlie, or other artists he meets along the way, or women who cross his path.

I had no idea about Keith & Ronnie Spector. <3 <3

Does anyone know what the relationship between Cox & Richards was for putting the book together?

Picked this up today... so excited.

i'm about half way through it myself. recommend.

It was excellent, also I got bored with the more recent years stuff....james fox wrote that book white mischief, which became a movie i believe--they are longtime friends apparently

what does it say about Mick and his songwriting input?

Know I should read it first, but I'm too excited to wait.

He heaps a lot of praise on Mick for lyric-writing, anecdotes about him writing whole song in 30 mins etc...

He's got a few laughs at Mick's expense re songwriting. For example: Mick proud of writing "Anybody Seen My Baby" only to realize he's unconsciously plagiarized k d lang.

I haven't got that far...Hahah that's great!

thanks, sounds great. I'm glad he gives credit to Mick's lyrics. If I found out that it was Keith writing them, it would seriously fuck up everything I believe in.

Nah he says mostly it was his riffs and a line or general idea, then Mick would run with that

He also confirms Mick's claims over the years about how many songs Mick's written solo: "Brown Sugar," "Miss You," "Undercover of the Night," etc.

I enjoyed the book very much, but Keith sure does have stodgy taste in music. If it's not bluesy or guitar-oriented or Stonesy he doesn't have much time for it. He even scorns Prince. One gets the impression that if not for Mick's input Exile on Main Street would be considered the last good Stones LP. I look forward to Mick Jagger's retaliatory autobiography.

How do you end up with that impression of Exile?

Oh I see that's confusing, what I just wrote.. I meant not Exile itself but all the subsequent albums on which Mick was trying to introduce contemporary reference points to keep the Stones fresh.. the disco on "Miss You" being the best example. It appears, by Keith's own admission, that Keith was resisting him the whole way, seemingly of the mind that Exile was the Stones' gold standard which they should aspire to with every new album, even into the 2000s.

...whereas Mick's thinking outside the box has provided us with many of the memorable moments in the post-'72 Stones discography. Without that, we might have had a long string of samey-sounding product, with all due respect to Keith's genius.

Jagger's the brain. A amoral relativist and (above all) an aesthete.

Keith's the heart.

^^^this

Keith sure does have stodgy taste in music

66 year-old millionaire from Kent in stodgy taste shocker.

Still trying to get my head around him taking Marlon around on tour during, what 75?

whats his explanataion about sniffing his father ashes?

I haven't got there yet...

I cannot believe how Marlon turned out normally (assuming he did). The "Russian Roulette" episode not to say everything else!

"Jagger's the brain. A amoral relativist and (above all) an aesthete.

Keith's the heart."

wasnt one of the purposes of Keith in the book to make people think he's smart?

also, how come they didnt break up if he talk so much trash about Mick?
maybe now they will..

xpost yeah, I know it's pretty interesting. Part of me really likes the fact that Keith made a point of keeping him around, but at the same time, being around all that when you're what, 7?
There's a weird selfish unselfishness to it. Like, "I'm going to stay being a junkie and I'm going to be this guy", but also "I'm a Dad so I have to do what I can to be there for my son."

I don't know that it's honorable, or wow what a great guy Keith is for doing that...but it just keeps rattling around, I think about it a lot.

Jagger-as-brain doesn't square with the guy who's released several terrible solo albums and forced them into a couple of dire market considerations. If anything, his willingness to give anything a go adduces his genuine nuttiness.

them = the band

Yeah, it's like Mick has no filter to what works, he just likes it because it's his idea. Whereas Keith has a bit more of a feel for what works within a song. Maybe? I dunno.

I like what Keith said about how Mick always wanted to go into an actual studio to record stuff, when him and Charlie would point out that they had a perfectly good set up at someone's house. Like Mick is very into the trappings of being a musician, but without a feel for the practicalities.

http://www.slate.com/id/2273611/

I refer to this BRILLIANT essay (written by a writer named, no joke, Bill Wyman, not that one) written as an imaginary response by Mick to Keith's book. It is amazing

something to be said for the seclusion of the studio though vegemite grrl. and for being able to work without people coming & going, and without others seeing what you're doing.

Yeah that's a good point. Maybe some of that was more Mick trying to pull Keith away from the houseful of junkies, which isn't such a ridiculous idea.

I kinda lol at the idea of a professional studio being a "trapping"

That Wyman article is A++

O_O at Keef using FAO Schwartz doctor kit for syringe. Damn.

I refer to this BRILLIANT essay (written by a writer named, no joke, Bill Wyman, not that one) written as an imaginary response by Mick to Keith's book. It is amazing

― iago g., Monday, November 8, 2010 4:38 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

thanks so much for posting that, ig. wonderful piece, now i just gotta read the book it responds to...

Yeah that Wyman piece is top notch

I got the brains, you've got the brawn
let's make lot's of money

Neil Tennant is the gay introverted Mick Jagger

I like the picture of toddler Keith on a baby leash.

Bill Wyman explains how he put together the Jagger letter:

http://www.hitsville.org/2010/11/07/mick-jagger-on-keith-richards—a-postscript/

Wyman wrote a pretty funny piece on Rolling Stones historical revisionism in the Chicago Reader back in 1994: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/doodoo-lounge/Content?oid=885084

I've re-read that Jagger letter over and over again...it really is fucking stellar

This is some bullshit though:

I am quite sure that, “Keith Songs,” aside, there is very little worthwhile on those albums.

Look at the dozens, the scores, of songs the bands has released on live albums and concert films in the last 20 years. “Start Me Up” aside, post-Some Girls material is rare, post-Undercover work virtually nonexistent.

lol @ "Doodoo Lounge"

I don't need a book to tell me Keith is smart, in fact I don't need to read all of this useless press either.

Maybe the book is entertaining. Lighten up, it's not War and Peace.

"also, how come they didnt break up if he talk so much trash about Mick?"

Green slips of paper with presidential portraits on them.

Like, "I'm going to stay being a junkie and I'm going to be this guy", but also "I'm a Dad so I have to do what I can to be there for my son."

it's pretty easy to imagine the latter as more "When I'm away from my son I feel shitty so I'm going to bring him on tour with me"

...and finished this today. Heart this book a lot and only just noticed the double-entendre title.

For some reason I LOLed every time I came across the word "ersatz"

I finally finished this over the weekend and was a bit disappointed, in spite of being a big Stones fan. Parts of it are good -- his accounts of his childhood and the early days of the band; the guitar technique, songwriting, and studio bits -- but after a few hundred pages, the raffish junkie charm was wearing thin. He's nothing if not candid but doesn't do a lot of reflection on his own behavior or what was going on around him. The Keith of 2010 still thinks the Keith of 1972 was a hell of a guy. I admire his ego strength, but come on, surely some of those antics look a bit different with 40 years of perspective? His bitching about Jagger also gets annoying, even when it seems justified.

It's still a good read, but I think unconsciously I was measuring it against the Dylan and Patti Smith memoirs. Which is crazy, because Keith Richards is not going to write a book like either of those.

Yeah - as a book I found it entertaining in parts, but overall quite flat because there's a single tone and not much reflection.

Agreed. But I honestly didn't go in expecting a whole lot of reflection from Richards: if there's the one thing that Mick and Keith have in common, I'd say that's it. And probably why they didn't pack it in decades ago.

things i learned from this book: the phrase 'tiny todger'