Rolling Stones: Classic or Dud

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

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

I saw the Stripes a bunch over the years and I don't think they were ever better than that Get Behind Me Satan era

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.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday,

I still relish reading Jagger interviews because there's almost always a moment when his courteous contempt for the interlocutor, his studious detachment, and a rock singer's tendency to sell things results in unexpected answers.

The Goats Head Soup promo interviews were good because he actually remembered these obscure album tracks and offered a few insights.

@Josh in Chicago more Mick n Keef fanfic please

lol

Out and about last night in Charlotte, NC pic.twitter.com/BWssvivAII

— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) September 30, 2021

All those people on the left, I wonder who *they* are looking at. "OMG, it's David Spade!!!!"

I kinda feel like Jagger can pass unnoticed in society pretty easily just because a) your average person would never expect to see Mick Jagger walking down the street and b) he's shorter than many people realize (he claims 5'10" but I'd bet he's no more than 5'8"), so he's just some skinny old man. Throw a hat on him and he's totally anonymous.

your average person would never expect to see Mick Jagger walking down the street

Maybe not, but it's pretty easy to tell who it is just by his walk:

https://c.tenor.com/U-MmqbfiJPkAAAAd/jagger-mick.gif

Both Bowie and Jagger (and Madonna) have said in interviews it's quite easy to turn the star power off, as it were, and walk down the street, go to the cinema, and do normal things without being noticed.

I'm definitely not sure I'd recognize Madonna these days if I just, like, saw her at Target.

I can easily imagine Jagger walking masked into a dark bar, ordering his beer, and walking outside without being noticed.

I saw Bowie and and about in NYC a few times (once on an electric scooter!) and he definitely was not unnoticed, but certainly unbothered.

"out and about" in NYC

xp I would think that uber-celebrities have done things in public during the pandemic they normally only dream about, what with the masking.

You also have to consider the possibility that “normal” people often realize that the cool thing to do if you’re at a bar with mick jagger is just let him be himself and don’t talk to him

maybe not everyone, but at least some people there surely realize that’s him and just don’t want to ruin his night

I mean, obviously somebody is taking the picture, for which he is posing, so he's not exactly downplaying it 100%. I wouldn't be surprised if the area were kind of vetted first.

For celebrities that are usually perfectly made up and outfitted and whatnot, it's probably not that hard to go unnoticed once you strip away the trappings.

just before the photo the people on the left were told "STOP LOOKING AT MICK. TURN THE OTHER WAY. DO NOT LOOK AT MICK."

"No one in the venue may look Danzig in the eye." (tour rider, later quoted in the liner notes to a Big Black album)

Chris Stamey described opening shows for Bob Dylan with the Golden Palominos in Europe, where the protocol backstage was "if Bob has his hoodie up, don't talk to him". Syd Straw talked to him anyway and he was apparently quite personable, hoodie or no.

Chris Frantz has the exact same kind of story in his recent memoir. I think he mustered up the nerve to chat him up, and not only was Dylan swell but he wondered why he was being avoided.

mick, keef and ron def seem super approachable and funny af. speaking of stern, theres a great story judd apatow tells about trying to pitch a movie to them. keef was making brian jones jokes!

Woody more than the others tbh

The Faces had that "blokes you can hang with" vibe in spades.

i spoke to mick jagger at a concert at the briefly-operating "cbgb theater" in 1978. after the opening act had played, my friend saw jerry hall walk down the aisle and figured mick couldn't be too far behind. sure enough he walked past with his head down, wearing a nondescript jean jacket and jeans. he was just standing around so i got up from my seat and asked him for an autograph on some piece of paper from my pocket. he motioned for me to put it down so no one could see and scrawled something illegible on it. i told him i wouldn't tell anyone he was there and he said "i know you won't you're so cute." then he and jerry took their seats, but before the jam came on he was recognized (the girl seated next to him started shrieking) and had to be led backstage. my brush with fame.

3/30/78 apparently...
https://www.thejamarchive.co.uk/78

Craving anonymity like others crave fame.

Was there something specific that kicked off this latest round of "Brown Sugar" discussion? Or was it just Keef mentioning that they don't play it any more in that recent interview?

But it did make me wonder how him from Mogwai had possible managed to avoid this song for so long:

Googled the lyrics to this song when I saw this headline.
What. The. Fuck. https://t.co/erkRoqyGvn

— stuart braithwaite (@plasmatron) October 13, 2021

Nothing so specific as just a climate change these past few years. Still, it's wild the shear number of people who are like, "I never knew...".