The Howling
Metro-North trains aren’t running (“temporarily suspended“) so I’m stuck in Connecticut. The snow has stopped but the wind chill is around ten degrees and the 40 mph to 50 mph winds are painful and blinding. It’s Klondike time. You could die out there. I’m dying of boredom in here. I left my Keith Richards autobiography in Brooklyn. I’m DVD’d and Bluray-ed out. But the roads are semi-negotiable so there’s always the exploration aspect.
I read that Keith Richards book. Hard to know what to think of the guy. He’s one of a kind, I guess. It does make you wonder how such average-looking guys pull the supermodels. I suppose I’m naive about the attraction of money and fame. Musically, the Stones were a very good band for a long time, but I haven’t listened to them since “Gimme Shelter.”
“The Stones were a very good band for a long time, but I haven’t listened to them since Gimme Shelter“?? You stopped listening to them 41 years ago? Tell me how admitting to a form of Rip Van Winkle-ism adds to the conversation. This is a mildly embarassing admission all around…please.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones
Ha ha, what a joker, JW. On the contrary, it is not embarrassing in the slightest not to keep up with your fetishes. The Stones became grotesquely commercial and uninteresting. If you saw how wimpy Jagger was in the Altamont film, you would have known the tough guy Stones act was completely phony. Guess you think I should have been there throwing beer bottles at the Angels.
Sorry, I loved it when the Stones became absurdly commercial. I love their 60s output, of course, but no one defined the sound of New York in the 70s like they did. Start Me Up? Emotional Rescue? Yes please.
That may be true, Ponderer, I couldn’t tell you. I seriously lost interest after Altamont, because I felt they were not authentic anymore. Even Richards’ book admits they went for the paycheck. Wells will object on the same grounds to everyone signing up for Fockers II and III, but his standards are obviously quite flexible.
I seem to recall a version of this discussion occurring on a prior thread, but I did want to compliment BJB on his nonchalant honesty while wondering: You may have stopped listening to the Stones after “Shelter,” but how on earth did you actually avoid HEARING them? Because, damn, they were on the radio quite a lot for some time after that. And while they’ve made quite a few very very good records along the way, I’d say the only two zeitgeist-definers that BJB missed by checking out were “Sticky Fingers” and “Exile.” Stopping caring about the Stones in the ’70s doesn’t necessarily make you a Rip Van Winkle. In fact, in some peoples’ books, it makes you a fucking grown up.
That said, I thought Altamont was pretty, um, “authentic,” as far as rock events go…
Sorry, Glenn, but you’re wrong (I would never get to write that line any other time, my film knowledge is subpar in this crowd). I agree with you regarding Fingers and Exile, but “Some Girls” must definitely be added to that list. “Miss You” and “Shattered” along with personal fave “Respectible” belong in their pantheon.
As far as “authentic” goes, the only authentic rocker is a dead one. All others are pretenders to varying degrees.
To each his own. I waited until the 80s to stop listening to their new stuff. Still enjoy what came before, though.
Point taken, 62Lincoln; “Some Girls” belongs on that list too. I wuz just being argumentative. To which I should add: looking over BJB’s comments more carefully, I have to laugh a bit. The whole point of the Stones is that they were NEVER authentic: they were middle-class British kids PRETENDING to be bluesmen, that is, black. Debauched and snotty they may have been, for real; guys who could have prevailed in a face-off with a bunch of bikers, they never were. And anyone who tells me he would have done different from the Stones at Altamont would have to do more to convince me than just insist on the point.
Not a lot of musicians were/are genuine tough guys…it’s not easy to be multi-disciplined like that. And the musicians who WERE genuinely good in a fight had, well, arguable talent as musicians. Not that I want to pick a fight with any David Allan Coe fans in Jeff’s orbit…
I was always amused to read about what a genuinely mean and effectively aggressive and violent guy Billy Eckstine could be. Crooning “Satin Doll” like nobody’s business, and then maybe cutting a motherfucker like it weren’t no thing. I don’t believe Jagger ever aspired to that condition.
Love the Stones but I’ll pass on the book. Some Girls was great because when it was released in 1978 it was the disco era and it was a perfect counterpoint. Do I really need to know all that info on Richards? No.
You’re absolutely right, Glenn. I did hear them a lot, but they never grabbed me. I don’t really know why, it wasn’t Altamont, exactly. I just remember the impression that made on me. I owned Let It Bleed on which “Gimme Shelter” appears, and remember listening to it while at college stoned on acid sitting on the roof outside my bedroom window in college. Again, a memorable impression.
Their disco phase — must one comment?
I was a musician myself and still know the difference between authentic players and rock’n'roll posers (not that Richards is entirely a poser, he and Watts are good). But for an authentic player from that era who still kicks it without all the prancing, I’ll give you Jeff Beck, as here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuXcGHjBeac
ugly guys get the women cause they either have game, lots of cocaine or look like the uncle that led them into the toolshed.
So Natalie Portman is pregnant and engaged. A bun in the oven means Oscar’s in the bag: http://www.tvguide.com/News/Natalie-Portman-Engaged-1027151.aspx
P.S., it’s not that they aren’t really tough guys, Glenn. I don’t care that they’re not tough guys. But they projected the persona for commercial purposes, so disaffected teens could get behind all that Sympathy for the Devil blather. It was Vietnam and I was draft age. I had no time or love for phony rebellion.
Pregnant Portman?
UGH. Yeah, plus I’m sure the marriage’ll last.
Don’t get me wrong, BJB, I’m not taking super-serious issue with you on any of your points. And while I was just a precocious youngun during that time, I had an uncle who was draft age (not particularly rebelious, however), and the anxiety our family went through as he used up every deferment (and they weren’t educational deferments either; he was pretty much the sole support of his mom, my grandfather having passed away in ’66) and finally got shipped off (he made it through okay) was no joke. So I can totally appreciate how it might have felt to be counting on the rock guys to bring the real, as far as standing up to the man was concerned.
Anyway, totally love Jeff Beck. Have worshipped the man forever, as have a LOT of musicians of every stripe. I once asked the no-wave skronk rocker Arto Lindsay why he never learned to play the guitar “properly” and he said, “Because I knew I’d never be able to play like Jeff Back.”
well, holy shit, if it isn’t holden fucking caulfield himself over here.
“I was a musician myself and still know the difference between authentic players and rock’n'roll posers (not that Richards is entirely a poser, he and Watts are good). But for an authentic player from that era who still kicks it without all the prancing, I’ll give you Jeff Beck, as here:”
huh?
i’m 29 and have been playing guitar since i was 11 and i’ve never heard of “authentic players” vs. “rock n roll posers” or whatever. either you can play or you can’t. intentions don’t mean shit and if you’re too caught up in image (which you CLEARLY are) then you will ignore a lot of great music and musicianship because it doesn’t pass your hilariously anachronistic “street cred” test.
miles davis came from a middle- to upper-class background and had an image of a hard-as-nails motherfucker who battled a smack addiction half of his adult life–guess he was a big phony, too, right? i mean, if only he had come from THE STREETS, MAN. or how about the black metal musicians in norway in the ’90s who all grew up middle- to upper-class and wound up burning down churches and killing people–do they pass your authentic rebel test?
i used to think like you 10 years ago when i was still a teen, but then i grew up. you’re *considerably* older than i am (you’re probably even older than my parents) and so it’s sad that you haven’t done the same.
btw, kenny, i’ll raise a lydia lunch to your arto lindsay reference.
WHO HAS MORE STREET CRED NOW, MOFOS?
Very funny phantasmata. You understood the exact opposite of what I said. Must feel good, though.
Thread’s too long, outtie.
I always imagine phantasmata as only posting on his lunchbreaks at the soundboard in between laying down some totally dated Satriani/Yngwie-sounding whammy bar solos on Sunset and Gardner, then moseying over to the Guitar Center to drop the knowledge about the blues origins of rock-n-roll to some bored kid in an Escape the Fate the T-shirt.
BJB, listen to Exile and get back to us about posers. You really are wrong.
Oh, goodie…this immediately turned into a comment thread about the Rolling Stones!
This, like, NEVER happens on any other board I frequent on the Internet.
Jeff, haven’t you been reading the “Richards” bio since Thanksgiving? Lets get that sucker back to the library so the rest of us can get a shot at it.
P.S. – Watched “Greenberg” today after several hours of vigorous snow shoveling. Loved it as much as you did and don’t understand how Greta Gerwig is not being talked about. Mark Duplass was standout in a miniscule role. Anxious to see his “Cyrus”.
moseying over to the Guitar Center to drop the knowledge about the blues origins wholesale hair of rock-n-roll to some bored kid in an Escape the Fate the T-shirt
Cyrus is pretty awful…I actually think Duplass has much more of a future in front of the camera than behind it. Ever seen The League? He’s a pretty damn likable (and believable, for what it’s worth) everyman in that series.