Fashionista

On 9/28/2018 at 5:44 AM, Len Cnut said:

You could actually learn a lesson about how to do drugs from Keith, a very valuable one.  He talks about it in his book and I suppose it doesn't make sense unless you've tried drugs but then in a way it might I suppose cuz you drink a bit but its a little different.  He says something like, and its totally true, that after a certain amount, you don't get any higher.  For instance, taking one hit on acid and taking three don't really make a lot of difference in the effect on your high.  You might be tripping longer but thats about it.  Same with coke, do a couple of lines and you're good, do a gram, or two, or three and you hit a certain level and thats it, after that you're just shoving the shit up your nose and chasing a heart attack.  Same with drinking, after a certain point you ain't gonna get more pissed, you're gonna sign off.  I understand that tolerance levels go up etc but that doesn't really effect like...the peak of the high.  Same with weed, there is really no point in smoking like half an ounce a day (which is a tall ask for your average anyway) cuz you don't get any higher really, the buzz will wear off in roughly the same amount of time.  I think, more than anything, Keith was just level-headed with it, a lot more than people believe.  Heroins a different beast but even that can be managed, at least to a point.  In those days I think they just had a kind of bohemian set up going on where, y'know, 'wait til Keith wakes' wasn't an odd thing.  But thats beside the point, you've just got to be judicious with these things.  Also, you space these things out.  Coupled with performing, which sweats a lot of shit out of your system, and also these guys are fuckin' minted, the reason so many junkies fuckin' systems collapse or whatever is because they don't have fuckin' good food to eat.  I mean when you're fuckin' begging for coins to go out and get a bag that evening you're probably not getting a three course meal chucked in anywhere. 

I think a lot of these rockstars look up to Keith and the like because of some sort of imagined notion of him just being fucked ALL the time, like pure hammered but I'm not sure it was like that.  Not that he didn't do a mammoth amount, I'm sure he did but at the same time there was a helluva lot of work going on for him to be utterly off his tits the whole time.  I don't think it was ever about misery and despair for Keith like it is for a lot of famous addicts like Sid Vicious or Kurt Cobain.  As for Guns, apart from clearly not having Keiths judicious approach also you get the feeling working with someone like an Axl means a lot of fuckin' downtime too, which is never good for people with such personalities.  But yeah, I don't think Keiths a silly boy, he knows how to look after himself.

The peak for Keith, I mean the peak of the low, was during the Goat's Head Soup sessions. He's actually not on most of that record on guitar because he would be missing for days on end or turn up to the studio high and unable to function. He handles mostly bass parts or basic rhythm parts on that record (Bill Wyman's wife was raped in Jamaica and he was in court, so he only plays on like one or three songs). I mean his major contributions to it are Star Star and Angie, which really are basic guitar playing with Mick helping a lot with the songwriting (Mick has said Keith didn't write a single complete song by himself between Happy, on Exile, and Before They Make Me Run on Some Girls). In 1973, people in and around the Stones were thinking Keith was becoming how Brian was toward the end and Mick began actively cultivating a relationship with Mick Taylor just in case Keith needed the boot. Similarly, when Keith was busted in 1977, and it wasn't clear if he'd be going to jail or not, Mick had Taylor's number essentially on speed dial, ready to continue the Stones without Keith if need be. During the 1981 tour, George Thoroughgood was on standby. Ronnie Wood was HEAVILY doing coke and it was to the point he was becoming a liability. He was basically told show up high one more time and you're fired - and they had George waiting in the wings ready to replace him.

Going back further, in 1969, it was actually really uncertain whether the Stones would break up. Mick and Keith weren't talking because of the whole Anita debacle, Brian had lost all interest in the band, Bill was sick of the toxic atmosphere. Mick began focusing on his film career (he wrote Brown Sugar - the words, the music, the entirety of the song) by himself in preparation for a solo career (Memo from Turner had shown him he didn't really need Keith to make a great song). Meanwhile, Keith was so bitter he wrote Gimme Shelter while Mick was in the studio fucking Anita. Brian turned up here and there for sessions and contributed one last memorable part - autoharp on You Got the Silver, which Keith wrote for Anita:

The autoharp comes in at 35 seconds and is on the left channel - the lightly strummed instrument. That's Brian's last contribution as a Stone, recorded in February 1969.

Things were so unclear that they even did a whole photoshoot for the upcoming tour on May 20th 1969, with Brian as the centerpiece of the shoot as he had been always:
 

Mick Taylor began playing with them on May 30th, and the Stones as a group and made a mutual agreement about Brian's exit on June 3rd. It's been painted as a firing, but it really was more like a breakup of a relationship gone sour - both parties wanted out. Brian was reportedly relieved and people around him said it was like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He had been wanting for a year but didn't actually wanna quit. He actually was gonna quit in 1967 but Mick Jagger convinced him to stay. The band didn't wanna sever their relationship with him because he was useful in the studio and was arguably with Mick the star of the band visually and in terms of the fans. The reason they separated wasn't drugs, or an inability to function, but mostly Brian being uninterested to contribute and also being unable to tour legally.

On 9/26/2018 at 4:20 AM, Len Cnut said:

I've since discovered that Charlie Watts ain't on a fair bit of it as he was having some troubles at the time, that sort of explains things. 

Severe alcoholism. The whole band was in terrible shape, physically, except Mick. Keith was using smack again, Bill was fucking a 12 year old girl, Charlie was at his worst in terms of drinking, and Ronnie was freebasing coke. I believe Mick said of this period, that they couldn't run the Champs-Elysees, much less tour. Mick and Keith were barely speaking.

This is a very rare video of them in this period, 86, and they all look rather terrible.

1 hour ago, Len Cnut said:

It was only a first listen so I can't say much.  Sounded a bit...whats the word?  I dunno, conventional.  Not necessarily in a bad way.  Sounded very big, very made-for-MTV.  The vocals seem quite big, quite forward in the production.  I'm gonna give it a few more listens. 

By the way, check this out, a little stuff from the old days:

This is when they were a band. But Mick was always so calculated and press friendly. 

6 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

Listened to Dirty Work today. 

And? What did you think? I personally feel as an album it's got too much killer, but if you trimmed it down to an EP it'd rock:

1) One Hit to the Body, classic mean Stones 
2) Winning Ugly
3) Back To Zero

4) Dirty Work 
5) Sleep Tonight

This is the Stones' album Mick had the least to do with. At this point in his life, being a Stone was his boring day job. He actually wrote the band a note in this period saying they were old and he didn't need them anymore. He was focusing on his solo career. Most of the music was composed by Keith and Ronnie Wood, and Mick just layed a vocal over it. Keith felt pissed because he felt he gave his better writing to his solo record which came out the same year.

Where Keith beats a fan with his guitar mid song, love it.

1966 live, a VERY heavy Satisfaction

Another mid 70s live gem. People love the 72 tour, but I love them live 67-69 and 75-76. Sloppy and raw

Another great sloppy performance, 1969:

When they became a precise live act in 1972-1973 it got boring.

My Top Stones Tracks by lineup (no order)
 

Brian Jones Years:
I Wanna Be Your Man

Dandelion

Jigsaw Puzzle

Citadel

2000 Light Years From Home

Little Red Rooster

Heart of Stone

Get Off My Cloud

Child of the Moon

Jumpin' Jack Flash

It's All Over Now

You Got the Silver

Yesterday's Papers

Lady Jane

Mick Taylor Years:

Can't You Hear Me Knockin'
Silver Train

Dancin' With Mr. D

100 Years Ago

Winter
Dance Little Sister

Short and Curlies
Rocks Off

Ronnie Wood Years:

Miss You
Dance Part 1
Send It To Me
When The Whip Comes Down

Too Much Blood

Shattered

Back To Zero

Winning Ugly
Sad Sad Sad

Mixed Emotions

Rock in a Hard Place

Thru and Thru

Favorite performance of Sympathy, 1975 Tour.

10 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

The Stones were never more American than on the Exile album (unless you are discussing their earlier ''covers'' era). It runs the whole gauntlet of American folk musical traditions, from blues to country, from gospel to rock n' roll - you can really hear the strains of Bessie Smith and Robert Johnson in there. Between the Buttons however is as English as fish and chips. What on earth else can one make of, 

- ''Who's Been Sleeping Here?''

And there are multiple lyrics describing ''Swingin' London'', of which ''Amanda Jones'' is certainly one, stuff like,

 

My first Stones record was the Compilation, Through the Past Darkly, which mostly is their 1966-1968 period. I guess as a result to me that's always just struck me as, not really belonging to any cultural custom. Yeah, Exile is a very American album, but then so is Some Girls, so is the run from Some Girls through Emotional Rescue really and I take that over Exile. I love the Stones early material - the covers era - and the their two experimental eras (65-68 and 78-86). Sticky Fingers is probably my second favorite album by them. But if you took all the rest of the Taylor years in terms of albums, there's not really a full album I listen to there after Sticky Fingers until Black & Blue. It's just, if I want what Mick Taylor brought to the band, I could easily find that listening to Led Zeppelin or Aerosmith or the Kinks on Lola. I'm not knocking songs like Dance Little Sister or Dancin' With Mr. D or 100 Years Ago, but after Sticky Fingers, for me the Stones sound more an amalgamation of whatever was big in hard rock. 

And yeah, Mick didn't totally mature as a lyricist until Beggar's Banquet.

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

They are similar but ''All Down the Line'' is much better - and I'm a big admirer of the Goats Head record. 

I find it strange how you prefer The Stones's American basis yet extol by far their most English sounding album, Between the Buttons which is clearly ''imitation Kinks'' at its least impressive.

I like a certain type of English music, and a certain type of performance. Like I said, I'm not familiar with the Kinks beyond Lola really, but I put on the Village Preservation Society just now and so far so good. I just dislike shit like, Penny Lane, When I'm 64. A lot of it comes down to arrangement and performance. I can listen to old Irish music and old English ballads and enjoy it. It's just there's a certain, to use a more English word, twee way of sounding which The Beatles in their later career sounded like - that's the aspect of British music I hate. British tastes are a lot different than American ones, I think; like, there's shit about British culture I can't stand - you guys might've pioneered the psychadelic movement, but I prefer American or even American-esque takes on it more than the British one, it's just too Austin Powers for me, and that mid/late 60s Beatle type sound is just Disney shit to me, Pooh Bear crap.

I guess also, I know with the Stones, that even at their most British, the whole thing is done with tongue firmly planted in cheek. It's a pisstake. Whereas I'm listening to the Kinks stuff and it's done deadly serious. The only stuff by the Stones I don't like is when they went all self serious on some of the lesser tracks of Satanic Majesties.

Who is doing the lead guitar lines on this version of Street Fighting Man? It sounds way too fluid to be Keith.

Just now, DieselDaisy said:

''Sweet Virginia'' and ''All Down the Line'' weren't filler: they were played live on the 1972 Exile tour (cf., Ladies and Gentlemen film), and have been revived occasionally since, especially so since the 1990s. Further, if there is a track which epitomizes Exile more than any it is ''Casino Boogie'', and no ''Torn and Frayed'', no ''Ventilator Blues'', no ''Stop Breaking Down'' - these are some of my very favourite songs by The Rolling Stones!!

I didn't mean to exclude Sweet Virginia, I like that one and added it back. But I maintain that All Down The Line was done better as Silver Train (Mick Taylor even said something about feeling the two songs were quite similar)

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

You have just decimated one of the greatest albums ever!!!

Yes, I cleaned the filler out of it. 

Casino Boogie sounds like what would turn up on an unreleased songs compilation more than a really well thought out song.
 

Torn and Frayed sounds like typical late 60s-early 70s blues/southern rock you'd hear from The Band or the like. 

All Down The Line was done better as Silver Train
Ventilator Blues is just plain filler, which is why they gave Mick Taylor a co-writing credit
Stop Breaking Down is more of a jam than a song
Turd on the Run is another half baked thing
 

11 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

It is more concise and of the ilk of the Kinks and Beatles than Exile. Exile is like one of those mass musicologist research projects experts did in the early twentieth century - not just in the United States but in places like Africa - the aim being to record folk-tribal music before they vanished. It is as if The Stones had visited the cotton fields of 1930s America and captured snatches of ''negro music''. Amanda Jones sounds like something you'd bop to in a London nightclub in 1967 with Jean Shrimpton in tow!! 

I actually think Exile, like most double albums, could use some trimming:

1) Rocks Off
2) Rip This Joint
3) Shake Your Hips
4) Tumbling Dice

5) Sweet Virginia
6) Sweet Black Angel

7) Loving Cup
8) Happy

9) I Just Wanna See His Face
10) Let it Loose
11) Shine A Light
12) Soul Survivor

That's a perfect album there. On the filler tracks you can see the rot start to show which would become more and more evident with each record of the rest of the Taylor years.

Also, this should've been put on Betwen The Buttons. It's a leftover from the Aftermath sessions.

For my money, my favorite song on the record is Yesterday's Papers. A perfect Pop track. All the pieces fit right. Jack Nitzche on harpsichord and and Brian Jones' marimbas create a musical tapestry along with Bill's bass.

I actually feel the weak link on Between the Button is Mick. His singing isn't as powerful as it could and should be in places, and his lyricism isn't up to par. The rest of the band is tight and the melodies are key.

If Satanic Majesties' had been trimmed and rearranged a little and had Dandelion and We Love You added to it, it'd make the Stones have an undisturbed run of great records from 1965 to 1973.

1) Citadel

2) We Love You
3) The Lantern
4) Dandelion
5) 2000 Man

6) She's A Rainbow

7) In Another Land

8) Gomper

9) 2000 Light Years From Home
 

5 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

I couldn't even imagine a song with that lyrical content appearing on Exile. 

Musically, though, it fits fine, it's in the same style. It has that ramshackle loose vibe of the '71-'74 era. Mick Jagger just hadn't matured as a lyricist yet, not totally anyway.

On 9/15/2018 at 8:31 AM, DieselDaisy said:

It is very much like that, except ''Please Go Home'' which is in the Stones' default style and ''Connection'' maybe. That album is their foray into vaudeville English kitsch. 

Miss Amanda Jones would fit right on Sticky Fingers or Exile, how is that vaudeville English kitsch? The only vaudeville track is really the final one.

4 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

You can be a bit reductive in general about sussing out peoples personalities.

Rocky Raccoon wasn’t in a similar vein to Far Away Eyes?  Back in the USSR isnt punny?  Ob La Di, if you know anything of Ska is similarly in that Far Away Eyes vein.  Yer Blues, conceptually and in terms of its title, though the content is pretty sincere is similar...but its kind of sincerity wrapped in a joke.

Basically there was more wit and subtlety to The Beatles humour and The Stones one, the ones you catch onto anyway, have to have a certain blatant-ness to them.  

That's why the last 3 Beatles records are pretty much the only ones I like by them. The earlier records are something I feel are more to be studied for their musical competence and melodic pop structure than enjoyed in 2018.

5 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

Been listening to Emotional Rescue all week.  Again, a great fuckin' album.  I've yet to hit these bad Stones albums.  I've heard Tattoo You so Undercover is next.  Dance, Send it To me, Down in the Hole (my favourite), Let Me Go...not really a bad track on it.  Its not brilliant or anything, its not Exile or whatever but its a very good album, more than worthy of repeated listenings, very enjoyable, a worthy inclusion to their catalogue.

Undercover and Dirty Work are considered the "bad ones", but I enjoy them. Another one considered subpar is Bridges to Babylon, which, to be honest, I've never really listened to in full. It was Mick's attempt to be hip with mid/late 90s music.

6 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

It'd be interesting to know who drummed on that, if feels like its Matt because the song lacks the sort of swing that tunes like that need.  Feels like a song that would've sounded brilliant stripped down and on the second side of Lies.

It's Matt. The only song Steven is on on the UYIs is Civil War.

5 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

I'm still getting over the 'The Beatles were dead serious when they did that sort of thing' comment.  When I'm 64, serious?  These fuckin' LSD figureheads of the permissive society writing a song like that is being dead serious?   'doing the garden digging the weeds, who could ask for more?' serious?  'Yours sincerely, wasting away', serious?   What song has he been listening to?

Ya know what I mean. Compare "When I'm 64" to "Something Happened to Me Yesterday" one could seriously be used in like a Disney type film or a cutesy romance, it can be taken rather seriously, it's very Pooh Bear. The latter is obviously a pisstake on that sort of song "Don't know if it's against the law..."

A lot of things with bands come down to the personalities or personas of those involved and I guess I simply relate to the Stones as an American more than The Beatles:

John - artistie. Holier than thou. Blargh. Fuck that.
Paul - Looks like my grandma, makes pretty pop songs, as commercial as an artist can get. Blargh.

George - Coolest member of the group for me. Hippie guy. I dig that.

Ringo - He's Ringo. He's not bad.

Really, it's John and Paul who get on my nerves. Now, Stones in terms of personas....

Mick - Tongue in cheek sense of humor, everything is always a bit of a joke, could be at home equally in NYC or London

Keith - Nice guy with a tough guy pose, but it works, with the accent and everything

Brian/Mick/Ronnie - A mixture of fashionable madness and musical versatility, shyness and guitar heroics, and a ruffled raven lookin guy who doesn't talk much
Bill - Quiet, odd guy in the back who cracks a smile once in a while, honest, down to Earth

Charlie - Never cracks a smile, dry, could've had a career in Monty Python as such, has a sense to look so miserable that it falls into self parody.

The Beatles could never be punny or write a song with the title "Turd on The Run". They may have had a sense of humor but it was waaaaaay different and much more British, as such when they do their joke songs, I don't feel in on the joke, I don't get the punch line, it's something more a stab at their own culture than mine. Like, take Sweet Black Angel by the Stones, half serious, half joke; but I can GET it. Or Far Away Eyes. I'm no country boy but that's a song I can understand and have a laugh at cause the type is stereotype nowadays here in the US and obviously was in 1978 too. When The Beatles have a laugh, they're having a laugh on old British culture or what have you.

It's hard to explain for me but even when the Stones at their most "British", it never comes close to the old, teddy bear feel The Beatles had. Also, I never liked the Disney-esque gimmick that these were cool good boys, close lads, friends, like there's this fuckin Harry Potter vibe to The Beatles, "Oi, it's John, Paul, George and Ringo", it was all too "we're all best of friends we are o' course" bullshit. The Stones never seemed like that. And Mick and John were about as far apart as people as two could be. Mick to me is like an honorary American. The Stones, even when they were doing stuff like Lady Jane, there was a very "tongue-in-cheek" vibe to it. When The Beatles did that kind of thing, it was dead serious. That same aspect of British culture that I hate about Oasis. Hard to explain but that's how it looks from this American's perspective.

On 9/11/2018 at 2:11 PM, Len Cnut said:

It happened with Elvis yeah but with Elvis he was never really anything other than a pop star.  He was just a singer.  Probably my favourite solo artist of all time and an absolute cultural behemoth but he didnt have that artsy intellectual edge that John had, Elvis was never gonna come out and say anything against the established order, Elvis was never gonna be at the forefront of a counter culture, Elvis never had the chance to fly across the world in the age of mass media and telly to have these images sent home of entire miles and miles of city block shut down by an ocean of bodies whilst The Beatles stood on a balcony giggling.  His level of fame was most definitely comparable but at the same time it never got the chance to be so vividly fleshed out.  Like the Shea Stadium example I gave, who did that before The Beatles?  In the relatively simple times of the early to mid 60s you must have some pretty high ideas about yourself or you’d die of fright before you got to the stage.

And then everything you do, everything you wear, the drugs you take, every type of haircut you get, every hat you put on all becomes like...chic.  I can imagine someone in that position in life becoming a bit fuckin’ mental.

And yknow, I got a lot of time for the artiste types.  I like the opposite too, dont get me wrong but like...there’s room for all.  I think John was a prodigy to be honest.  So talented in so many avenues, such a naturally sharp wit, a bit of a bully with it too really, definitely not without his faults but a brilliant fella.  I think the same about Paul too, whoose contribution to even the artsy expansive free thinking side of The Beatles is immensely underrated.  And George Harrison was a brilliant understand guitar player, had this instinctive knack of transforming entire songs with just these little touches.  And Ringo to me is as important to The Beatles as Charlie Watts is to The Stones.  Despite what many drum snobs will tell ya Ringo put a distinctive stamp on those songs.

I always wondered how Americans ever swallowed The Kinks.  Their first album was very American but then almost immediately they were off on their own thing.  But I dont think cultures are necessarily devisive, its an exchange of information isn’t it, like how me and you are into so much yank stuff, on paper the blues for instance shouldn’t appeal to us.

Just wanna comment on the last point - The only record I've ever heard in full by The Kinks is the Lola album and it reminds me of the Stones. 

11 hours ago, Wagszilla said:

And?

 

It wouldn't have half the legacy it does if Kurt had lived in my opinion. And I say that as a Nirvana fan. If Kurt had lived, In Utero would've been seen much like the UYIs - a challenging, interesting record with some great singles moving in a new, softer direction. 

On 9/11/2018 at 3:31 PM, Wagszilla said:

In Utero was basically Kurt's statement against Nevermind. 

It was consciously crafted to be the anti-thesis of everything that Nevermind was.

It's kind of like In Bloom writ large. 

Great record.

And as much as I like Unplugged, it's half covers, but a musical direction they could've / should've explored.

Kurt's last song, "You Know You're Right" is something he was immensely proud of, as a sonic relation to AIC but kind of the direction I wouldn't really cared for them to take. 

In Utero, though, it must be remembered, was a commercial flop before Cobain's death.