Rolling Stones: Classic or Dud

(no Stones show today that is)

I forgot that saw Charlie Is... way the hell back at the old Alamo Drafthouse in Austin. They were doing a Peter Whitehead series and it got stuck on unannounced to a program of his Rock promo films. Quite the surprise, as it still was a few years before it received an official release.

And yes, judging on the footage there and the Royal Albert Hall stuff in the clip for "Have You Seen Your Mother...", it's a wonder they got out of those shows alive.

Here's an excerpt from the HYSYM clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3IRBeRlAKo

The whole thing isn't up right now.

Saw the Stones in fall of 2019. A very last-minute decision, they were in town and on the day of the show I thought "what the hell" and got tickets for me and my mom. She mostly knows the big, pre-Exile hits, so she had a wonderful time. For me, it wasn't a transcendent concert experience or anything but I was still glad to get to see them for real. I was very charmed by Ronnie Wood in particular - he came across very cheerful and present in a low-key way, just a guy in a band who likes his bandmates and is happy to be there. I felt like he would have had the exact same vibe playing at a bar on a Friday night.

https://i.imgflip.com/5ipxkb.jpg

lol

Christgau stood by his original A- rating for A Bigger Bang after he revisited it months ago. So I put it on and gave it a fair shake - for a little while, I thought he could be right, but after a wrong turn with "Streets of Love," it feels like the energy drains out of the whole thing. Things perk up here and there, but it feels like aa overlong, top-loaded album that would've been better off as an EP. (FWIW, it's 16 tracks and over 64 minutes, less than three minutes shy of Exile on Main Street.) "Rough Justice," "Let Me Down Slow," "Rain Fall Down," "Oh No, Not You Again" and "Infamy" would've been fine as their own little 5-track, 20 minute record - nothing earth-shaking, but enjoyable.

It's boilerplate, but I really like "It Won't Take Long" off that one.

Like alot of Classic Rock bands, CD Bloat really hurt the Stones, both in including too many songs, and having tracks drag on and one (I swear everything on Bridges is 5+ minutes).

There was even a deluxe Bigger Bang that came out a few months or so later that was a full 80-minute CD!

Except now I see on wiki that the extra stuff on that deluxe edition (two new tracks and a remix) were only on the accompanying DVD*, not added to the CD.

*An amusing affectation of the time, that DVD-exclusive audio.

...ranked the second-best album of the year by Rolling Stone magazine, behind rapper Kanye West's Late Registration.

They were hurt by CD bloat but also a little by the peak CD-era production.

Unrelated, I had no idea there were these demos floating around of later era Mick-sung songs with Keith doing the vox:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUpkJKhLyuI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNRfC7BAQh8

"Laugh I Nearly Died," "Biggest Mistake," and a few other jams easily make ABB their best since Dirty Work.

Every album from Steel Wheels on features a few songs so good if the entire album were like them it would be their best since pick your album.

Even that blues album a few years ago reminded me what a good if not great harmonica player Jagger remains.

I watched the video for "Emotional Rescue" the other night (and the Stones don't get enough credit for having a huge backlog of proto-music videos, going back to like Goats Head Soup or It's Only Rock 'n' Roll) and Jagger should have used that falsetto voice more.

and the Stones don't get enough credit for having a huge backlog of proto-music videos, going back to like Goats Head Soup or It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

This is pretty damn true. And Watts knew how to look in each of them perfectly.

They go back even further! Peter Whitehead directed clips on them as far back as 1966.

Here's the "We Love You" vid from '67

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfmVfBnpvOg

Better Version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7kU1KZZyqc

the closer "love is strong" gets to "wicked as it seems" the better it gets. demo is fire and much better than the final release, tho the bridge is still a problem.

no band has ever sounded that evil

the whole was really better than the sum of its parts with the stones. they had some alchemical quality. evil is as good a word as any, meant in the best sense.

They were hurt by CD bloat but also a little by the peak CD-era production...Every album from Steel Wheels on features a few songs so good if the entire album were like them it would be their best since pick your album.

It's been tough getting through all of them, partly because so many of them run well over an hour and there isn't anything close to an hour's worth of worthy material.

I'm tempted to say Voodoo Lounge is the only one that had a real album's worth of listenable material. It's not the best music from this era - for starters, nothing's as good as the highlights on A Bigger Bang - but there's at least 40 minutes of stuff that feel pretty sturdy. After one pass, I chopped it down to 45:43 over 11 tracks (one of which is apparently a B-side, not an original album track):

1. Love Is Strong
2. You Got Me Rocking
3. Sparks Will Fly
4. The Worst
5. New Faces
6. Out of Tears
7. Jump on Top of Me
8. Brand New Car
9. Sweethearts Together
10. Blinded by Rainbows
11. Thru and Thru

Rescreened Gimme Shelter. An experience, as always. Forgot how much Charlie there was in the opening editing suite sequence. Something I hadn't noticed before: at the end of "Satisfaction" at MSG, there's a couple of crowd shots from the stage and there's somebody out in the middle of floor holding up a crutch as high as one can in such a situation: hand around the footie, arm totally raised waving it around.

Something I've noticed frequently--and never fails to kill me--is how at one of the tensest moments on-stage at Altamont, a dog casually strolls across the stage in front of Jagger.

there's a couple of crowd shots from the stage

johnny thunders in there too apparently.

https://iorr.org/talk/read.php?1,2338235

That's great. Wondering if it is as great as this

haha off topic but i once sat in the row in front of handsome dick at iggy's big comeback show at the palladium (the idiot). everyone was on their feet the whole show except handsome dick, who was slouched in his seat pretending to be asleep. at the end of the show he walked out with his hands raised over his head like a boxer proclaiming "I AM THE NEW IGGY POP!!!"

Ha!

Scarface gets it

Revisiting The Rolling Stones catalog and WOW!!! hit after fuckin hit 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾

— SCARFACE (@BrotherMob) September 2, 2021

Even conceding that "Black & Blue" is not really the band at its best, the off-kilter, randomly-rhythmic cover of "Cherry Oh Baby" sounds like they gave it two takes, max, neither with any clear understanding or grasp of - or even interest in - reggae. I can totally imagine how it went down.

Mick: "Keef. Keef! Wake up!"
Keef: ...
(Mick kicks the sofa)
Mick: "Get. Up!"
Keef: "Blrrreegghhgh."
Mick: "Whu?"
Keef: "I said I'm up!"
(looks around)
Keef: "Where are we?"
Mick: "We're in the studio, Keef. We're making an album."
Keef: "What, another one?"
Mick: "Yes, Keef, another one."
Keef: "Well, is it done yet?"
Mick: "No, Keef, it is not done yet, so get up."
(Keef stands and runs his hands through his hair)
Keef: "How long was I out?"
Mick: "I dunno, one, two ... ?
Keef: "Hours?"
Mick: "No, Keef, days. You were out one or two days, mate."
(Keef chuckles)
Keef: "Yeah, I'm a real stinker, I am. What do you need me for?"
Mick: "We've got a few more songs to finish. We've got "Hey Negrita," we've got "Fool to Cry," we've got ..."
Keef: "Let's do 'Cherry Oh Baby.'"
Mick: "'Cherry Oh Baby'"? What's that? That a new song you got?"
Keef: “Nah, no, it's this old reggae track."
(Mick furrows his brow)
Mick: "Reggae? Like 'I Shot the Sheriff"? Clapton?"
Keef: “No, no, this is the good reggae shit. The real shit."
(Keef takes a drag from his cigarette)
Mick: “When did you even light that?”
Keef: “I get me roadies to keep one going by my side so I have it when I need it.”
Mick: “Of course you do. Now get up and let’s record, what was that, ‘Cheerio, Baby’? How does it go?”
Keef: “Oh, it’s pretty easy stuff. Just put the accent on the third beat.”
Charlie and Bill (together): “Huh?”
Keef: “Just follow my lead, easy-peasy.”
Mick: “Well, it better be, we only have the studio booked for another 5 minutes today!”
Keef (cackling): “Perfect.”

Lol that’s perfect

LMAO

I actually like Black and Blue and think it's very good, but I kind of wished they ditched both that cover and "Melody" and finished "Slave" and "Worried About You" instead. Kind of, but Tattoo You would have taken a hit and Sonny Rollins's later overdub may be the best thing about "Slave."

Fully agree. I love the thick heady SOUND of B&B.

I guess they just kicked off their tour in St. Louis? I saw a couple of clips, and the problem with Steve Jordan (who is a great drummer) is that ... he is a great drummer. It's weird to hear the band with metronomic time.

yeah, a couple of my friends went to that show. i don't trust their opinion on any music though so :-o

The Stones are the first band that made me realize the full extent of fan logic. I reviewed a show of theirs some years back, and they were not that great that particular night. Just nothing special. And someone sent me a letter that more or less asked "if the Stones are not the best band in the world, then why have I seen over 50 shows on this tour!?"

I don't know, dude. I don't know. Tax write off?

did the fan think they were exactly as good each of the 50 shows?

also...50 shows...$100 minimum for each...travel, hotels...

i'm starting to think this fan is a gigantic asshole who should give their money to people who need it

give me the email of this fan, i want to talk (jk)

"hey fan, this is Zach T...uh, Keith Richards. of the rolling stones."

"This is Keith Richards, of the Rolling Stone. Thank you for buying me a car."

LMAO. I get why you'd go back - maybe not 50 times, but I actually get the appeal of aging with a group that you've known since your youth - but it reminds me of a Jim DeRogatis rant from about 2005 when the Sun-Times asked him to write something on the Stones and he wanted to do something on the White Stripes. Imagine it's 1969 and you say to your editor, "Hey, the Stones are coming into town - can I go cover it?" "The Stones??? No, JOHNNY MATHIS is playing tonight! You're covering Johnny Mathis!" How things come around...

I mean, I’d rather see the Stones in 2005 than the Stripes… but to each DeRo his own!

I love the Stones, but in 2005? Unless it was going to be my only chance to ever see the Stones, I'd take the White Stripes without hesitation.

(To be clear, 2005 was a good year for the Stones, probably their best this century.)

for nearly 40 years, they've been the greatest rolling stones cover band in the world

as I write, MJ is wrapping up a 50 minute interview with Howard Stern in which very little of consequence was discussed… if it was me, I would have asked him if he is aware that he refers to his own band as "they": "the thing about the Stones is that they are not just an R&B band, they do elizabethan or english folk tunes as well…"

I wonder how someone like Mick Jagger, or any other rock star, feels about having been in this business for over 50 years and still having to do bullshit press and publicity.

seeing the stones 50 times over 50 years is cool. seeing the stones 50 times on the same tour is a disturbing form of self-harm.

I wonder how someone like Mick Jagger, or any other rock star, feels about having been in this business for over 50 years and still having to do bullshit press and publicity.

I think someone like Jagger or Paul McCartney is more okay with it just because they have that lifelong business professional side to them. I thought this was kind of refreshing when he was promoting the super deluxe reissue of Goats Head Soup last year and someone mentioned how he praised the album over Exile when it first came out:

"I say stupid things like that when I’m promoting albums. You've got to take that with a pinch of salt. 'Course it’s better! This album, if you liked Exile, this is even better!' I can imagine myself saying that."

my guess is that they wouldn't be the rolling stones or the beatles without having at least someone who was savvy with PR, whether it was a manager in the 60s when they were still kids or john lennon accidentally doing a good PR stunts like comparing them to jesus off-hand. they're still here 50 years from now because of the bullshit press and publicity, so i expect he feels ok about it