tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-204431152077666102024-03-03T23:39:08.059-06:00Rockaliser Babya music blog.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.comBlogger211125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-7298950665716500642016-04-06T11:52:00.002-05:002016-04-06T17:34:41.999-05:00Bernie and Clinton<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With the Democratic presidential race getting heated,
it is surprising to note another, entirely separate Bernie/Clinton
feud. The Bernie in question here is Bernie Worrell, keyboardist and songwriter
in Parliament and Funkadelic. The Clinton in question is George Clinton, lead
singer of same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Together with bassist Bootsy Collins, these men made
up the songwriting core of the two groups for most of the 1970s and early
1980s. Their accomplishments are of course legion and not worth discussing here
at length. Suffice to say that while Parliament and Funkadelic had dozens of
members, those three men (plus Eddie Hazel) were the most restless sonic innovators.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today, Clinton still tours and performs often with a
Bootsy and Bernie-free version of Parliament/Funkadelic (now just a single
band). He still records music fairly often (most recently <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPHJXVBFFYY">this collaborationwith Kendrick Lamar and Ice Cube</a>) and enjoys his status in many documentaries and awards
shows as an elder funk statesman. Even more recently, he has become a crusader
for <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/06/06/154451399/george-clinton-fights-for-his-right-to-funk">musicians’
rights and digital rights protection</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Worrell, by contrast, has lived the last decade in
relative obscurity and bankruptcy. In January of this year, his wife Judie
w<a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1020839141272008&id=217445804944683">rote on Facebook</a> that Worrell was suffering from fourth-stage lung cancer. The
note mentioned that he was rejecting chemotherapy and going on an expensive
treatment plan, but seemed hopeful that Worrell was in good spirits and still able
to play occasional gigs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As usually happens with the
deteriorating health of older legends, the music press ignored the news until celebrities rallied to the cause. So it was that on April 4,
Pitchfork and Stereogum reported on the news of a benefit at Manhattan’s
Webster Hall. Bernie attended, and in addition to the Black Rock Coalition
house band, guests included Rick Springfield, Paul Shaffer, Meters guitarist Leo
Nocentelli, Talking Heads’ Jerry Harrison and David Byrne, and P-Funk head
Meryl Streep.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Also attending and playing were George Clinton and
Bootsy Collins. Clinton and Collins came on stage together, Collins presenting
Worrell with a psychedelic melodica present while Clinton hugged the
keyboardist. They played through a weird jam version of “I’d Rather Be With You”
with Bootsy on drums, then continued with “Flashlight” (always one of the best
showcases for Worrell’s playing). A general spirit of conviviality and joy, in
spite of Worrell’s illness, seemed to be the main feeling in the crowd. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So it was odd for me to see that night, posted just
hours before the concert began, this Facebook note:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOaLrHMs31llJ8-S5yLDC9KwmIN-yKQcKqq4vKdZNPw17MZiprqk9Ix7qkMLlSBTx-mKRp3bEbHO4HgrIIwC1xbN85dgPvaIsxfMWzf2jWhoMGydiSF_1H2KzD7a4lLuN5MomvF0A5ew/s1600/bernie1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOaLrHMs31llJ8-S5yLDC9KwmIN-yKQcKqq4vKdZNPw17MZiprqk9Ix7qkMLlSBTx-mKRp3bEbHO4HgrIIwC1xbN85dgPvaIsxfMWzf2jWhoMGydiSF_1H2KzD7a4lLuN5MomvF0A5ew/s320/bernie1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The note (not written by Worrell, but by his wife)
makes a number of claims that go against Clinton’s persona as a crusader for
musicians’ rights. The first claim is that Clinton called Worrell’s bankruptcy
claims “fictitious.” This seems odd for someone who fought so
valiantly for musicians instead of labels to own the rights to their music. I
searched Google for “Bernie worrell bankruptcy” and found nothing (it
is here that I might humbly defer to my esteemed colleague, who is an actual
journalist and might know how to look up these things). I see no evidence of Clinton denying or dismissing Worrell's legacy or contributions in any interview.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The other main claim is Clinton’s “outright theft of
everyone’s royalties.” If true, this outright theft isn’t mentioned by other
surviving members of the P-Funk clan, including Bootsy, Michael Hampton, and
others. We know a large portion of their catalog is credited to “Clinton/Collins/Worrell,”
and we also know that Clinton has had a long legal battle with the firm Hendricks & Lewis, maintaining that his signature was forged on various agreements that gave up copyrights to his songs. Has Clinton since negotiated a new deal with the owners of his catalog that gives him more money and rights than his former partners?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There doesn’t seem to be clear information on the
Internet about this either. It is downright mysterious. Judie then responded to
a fan accusing him of “appearing on stage with him and ripping [Clinton] apart
in a fbook post.” She responded:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR8WYyYB5h0cQ6tSzN1MSRsRvYJgSFjVIGnU2Rlwh6qor-muHjUKXlVd3YLeFWCyaDK94g-xz7exWExYp9PhVPkw9iSOLalzWP8IiekzDZVvtYkb-E6mNV3lxvbpoIPbijDtOTk5e99Q/s1600/bernie2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR8WYyYB5h0cQ6tSzN1MSRsRvYJgSFjVIGnU2Rlwh6qor-muHjUKXlVd3YLeFWCyaDK94g-xz7exWExYp9PhVPkw9iSOLalzWP8IiekzDZVvtYkb-E6mNV3lxvbpoIPbijDtOTk5e99Q/s320/bernie2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Judie Worrell’s description of the moment (where Worrell
did his best to ignore Clinton) does seem contradict <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4i6IqTyDEQ">actual footage</a>
that shows the men, well, hugging each other. Maybe Worrell was hugging back
out of politeness, but the genuine camaraderie between Collins, Clinton, and
Worrell at that moment seemed real (at least, according to eyewitness accounts). There is nothing more sad than the spectacle of musicians
who clearly hate each other doing the reunion racket (Hey, Slash and Axl
Coachella 2016). Think about any time David Gilmour and Roger Waters step on a stage together. This…didn’t look like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So what is going on? Judie promises that Bernie’s
upcoming autobiography will tell all. Does it have something to do with the
fact that George Clinton goes on the road as “George Clinton &
Parliament/Funkadelic”? Is it because George Clinton is a more well-known and beloved musician today? What caused the rift between the two men, and why?
Neither seems willing to acknowledge a problem exists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If we had an actual music press, they might want to
consider asking: is George Clinton really shortchanging his bandmates? If so,
how? And why is no one reporting on it? Professing on one hand to battle for
the rights of musicians, while at the same time diminishing the accomplishments
of one’s band members, is the kind of two-faced move one might expect of a very
different Clinton. Let us hope it is not true.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-36960329569800584832016-01-11T09:47:00.000-06:002016-01-11T09:50:41.536-06:00Nathan's Favorite Records, 2015<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">1. Tame Impala, <i>Currents<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Great psychedelia is intoxicating and messy. It
should lead your imagination toward one place and then zig when you
expect it to zag. Which is to say this album is a rabbit hole of “holy goddamn,
how did they think of that?” songwriting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2. Kamasi Washington, <i>The Epic<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A muscular, form-defying three-hour jazz odyssey
from the saxophonist in Flying Lotus’ cutting-edge stable. From Coltrane to Sun
Ra to funky fusion, Washington channels every permutation you can think of
and add a few more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">3. DāM-Funk, <i>Invite
the Light<br />
</i>In a time where retro is king, the man means to carry his namesake forward.
Layers of synths grind and sputter into something grand. It takes a few listens
to fully access the many levels of this record. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">4. Dr. Dre, <i>Compton:
A Soundtrack<br />
</i>The retirement album of a master, who to everyone’s surprise had something
new to say. Yes, <i>Compton</i> is as
self-serving a cartoon as the movie that inspired it. I could knock the hustle,
but the beatsmithing and guest verses are up to normal exquisite standards, and
there’s something else too, new to Dre: a sense of playfulness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">5. Destroyer, <i>Poison
Season<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Kaputt</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
from 2011 could never be imitated, and luckily, Dan Bejar does not try. Heavy
on orchestration but light on groove, quality still shines through these lonely
symphonies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">6. Blur, <i>The
Magic Whip<br />
</i>Damon Albarn’s track record continues almost unblemished, and here he
returns to the band that made him famous. An older band less interested in
showing off, and better for it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">7. Dawn Richard, <i>Blackheart<br />
</i>Taking a page from Janelle Monae’s multi-album conceptual journeys, Richard
composes a sequel to <i>Goldenheart</i> that
is, as she would say, “on that new shit.” She defies pop rules as cannily as
she invents new R&B sounds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">8. Deerhunter, <i>Fading Frontier</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">This is the first Deerhunter album I felt was seriously extraordinary. A mixture of pleasing classic rock and noise, it's quite the collection of weird anthems.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">9. Erykah Badu, <i>But
You Caint Use My Phone<br />
</i>Slight? Maybe slightly. This was an unexpected pleasure Badu dropped out
of nowhere, with a satirical edge I never expected. Beyond the takes on Drake
and the Isleys and the Andre 3000 verse, even at 36 minutes, it still feels
smooth and complete.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">10. Jay Rock, <i>90059</i>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">West-coast rap was too rich to believe in 2015. Yet
somehow this brisk, uncompromising entry in the nu-rap canon was regarded as a
disappointment. I defy anyone to listen to “Money Trees Deuce” or “Gumbo” and
tell me Jay-Rock is somehow lesser than Kendrick. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Favorite Songs*<br />
A$AP Rocky Feat. UGK and Juicy J, “Wavybone”<br />
Boogie, “Oh My”<br />
Cashmere Cat Feat. Ariana Grande, “Adore”<br />
Drake, “Hotline Bling”**<br />
Freddie Gibbs, “Fuckin’ Up the Count”<br />
Ilovemakonnen Feat. Migos, “Whip It (Remix)”<br />
Mutemath, “Used to”<br />
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, “All the Gold in California”<br />
Young Thug, “Best Friend”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*No reason to limit myself to just singles or radio hits</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">**The heart wants what it wants, and the ear likes what it likes</span></span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-163308929089236662016-01-01T11:14:00.001-06:002016-01-11T21:36:34.413-06:00Aaron's Favorites, 2015: Music In The Year Commas Got Fucked Up<b><br /></b>
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<b>1. Kendrick Lamar, <i>To Pimp A Butterfly</i></b><br />
You can live at the mall, or you can groove to Kendrick Lamar Duckworth’s funk odyssey of limitless ambition and acumen. K Dot is our Gil Scott.<br />
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<b>2. Destroyer, <i>Poison Season</i></b><br />
Bejar reaches a little further back to find his melancholic haze this time, but continues to make the only thing he’s capable of: a Destroyer record.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Jessica Pratt, <i>On Your Own Love Again</i></b><br />
A moonlit blur, our generation’s <i>I Often Dream of Trains</i>.<br />
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<b>4. Low, <i>Ones And Sixes</i></b><br />
A freezing blast of Duluth intensity, from a band writing some of its best songs in decade number three.<br />
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<b>5. Erykah Badu, <i>But You Caint Use My Phone </i></b><br />
Badu tries on the styles of the moment, sounds ten times more comfortable in them than actual young people. The technology she could do without.<br />
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<b>6. A$AP Rocky, <i>At.Long.Last.A$AP </i></b><br />
Didn’t expect 2015’s trippiest album to come from Pretty Flacko, but here it is. He had good taste, but he’s turning that into vision.<br />
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<b>7. Blur, <i>The Magic Whip</i></b><br />
A reunion album that finds the band where they are, not where they were. Basically Albarn’s world-weariness in widescreen, with brilliant details from Coxon and crew throughout.<br />
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<b>8. iLoveMakonnen, <i>Drink More Water 5</i></b><br />
He teaches you how to whip it, warbles about heartbreak, lies to his Mom about selling drugs and dispenses solid advice about staying hydrated. What’s not to love?<br />
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<b>9. Vince Staples, <i>Summertime '06</i></b><br />
A claustrophobic rumination on one summer in the rapper’s teens. No I.D’s no-frills productions are about as far away from West Coast as it’s possible to get, but it all feels true to Vince.<br />
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<b>10. Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment, <i>Surf</i></b><br />
Chance—even while ceding the spotlight to his friends, rapper and jazz trumpeter alike—radiates a shamanic positivity. Just drink the kool aid.<br />
<br />Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-17767613555482583582015-01-15T09:00:00.000-06:002015-01-15T20:25:44.574-06:00Rockaliser Radio: Rockcast VFor year five, Nathan and Aaron reconvene for the immense, 3.5 hour fifth installment of the Rockcast.<br />
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Who favors 19-minute noise epics more? What parts of the country might good rap music come from? Is <i>Black Messiah</i> the first great post-John Entwistle album?</div>
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Listen to find out the thrilling answers! You can stream above and download the podcast here.<br />
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And for good measure, here are Nathan and Aaron's lists:</div>
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<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2015/01/on-jape-im-returning-aarons-favorites.html" target="_blank">Aaron's 2014 favorites</a>:<br />
1. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, <i>Piñata</i><br />
2. YG, <i>My Krazy Life</i><br />
3. Damon Albarn, <i>Everyday Robots</i><br />
4. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, <i>Black Messiah</i><br />
5. DJ Quik, <i>The Midnight Life</i><br />
6. Lee Fields & The Expressions, <i>Emma Jean</i><br />
7. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, <i>Wig Out at Jagbags</i><br />
8. Ex Hex, <i>Rips</i><br />
9. ILoveMakonnen, <i>ILoveMakkonen</i><br />
10. New Pornographers, <i>Brill Bruisers</i><br />
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<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2015/01/everyday-be-listening-to-nathans.html" target="_blank">Nathan's 2014 favorites</a>:<br />
1. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, <i>Black Messiah</i><br />
2. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, <i>Piñata</i><br />
3. The Underachievers, <i>The Cellar Door: Terminus Ut Exordium</i><br />
4. Kimbra, <i>The Golden Echo</i><br />
5. Schoolboy Q, <i>Oxymoron</i><br />
6. Boris, <i>Noise</i><br />
7. Goat, <i>Commune</i><br />
8. Sturgill Simpson, <i>Metamodern Sounds in Country Music</i><br />
9. Big K.R.I.T., <i>Cadillactica</i><br />
10. Run the Jewels, <i>RTJ2</i></div>
</div>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-63769451118555657032015-01-02T09:33:00.000-06:002015-01-16T17:34:16.612-06:00Everyday Be Listening to Nathan's Favorite Records, 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">1.</b><b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> D’Angelo and the Vanguard, <i>Black Messiah</i></b><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Out of nowhere, D'Angelo and his appropriately-named backup group cast a spell of hypnotic jazz-funk-hard rock-flamenco-Great American Songbook-Beefheart-<i>There's a Riot Goin' On</i> jams so potent that they make up for 14 years of silence.</span><br />
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></b>
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">2. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, <i>Piñata</i></b><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Culled from years of relaxed sessions between the Gary, Indiana emcee and former Stones Throw's vinyl virtuoso, <i>Cocaine Pi</i></span></span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><i>ñ</i></span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><i>ata</i> (the semi-official title) finds Gibbs smoking Madlib's best-laid rhythms like they were nickel bags. A soul sample lover's paradise.</span></span><br />
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></b>
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">3. The Underachievers, <i>The Cellar Door: Terminus Ut Exordium</i></b><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">As the title suggests, this LP is all about linguistic beauty unrelated to meaning. Issa Gold and AK have the endless back-and-forth energy of a young OutKast, and like that group, their tightness reinforces each other's skills.</span><br />
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></b>
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">4. Kimbra, <i>The Golden Echo</i></b><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">With her stunning musicianship, ace choice in collaborators, unlimited vocal range, and twin allegiances to the groove and the avant-garde, the New Zealand pop star is in a class with only one other artist: Janelle Monae.</span><br />
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></b>
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">5. Schoolboy Q, <i>Oxymoron</i></b><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Schoolboy is the edgiest, nerviest, most unpredictable rapper in the Top Dawg roster and perhaps on the entire West Coast. <i>Oxymoron</i> is a gangsta/confessional record that is alternately a scary, hopeful, and thrilling window into the mind of a restless thinker.</span></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">6. Boris, <i>Noise</i></b><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Another year, another Boris album with a so-generic-it's-audacious title, another set of explosive churning stadium rockers that never go anywhere one expects. "Angel" is the 19-minute monster of the year.</span><br />
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></b>
<b style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">7. Goat, <i>Commune</i></b><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Do I care about Goat's devotion to Swedish vodou traditions and communal mysticism? Not really. But their music is enveloped in pleasure, bursting with dozens of uncharacteristic influences (afrobeat, psychedelia, drone, Beatlesque melodies) that will dizzy the listener who attempts to identify them.</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><b>8. Sturgill Simpson, <i>Metamodern Sounds in Country Music</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">The psychedelic qualities of this record are overstated--this is outlaw country-rock in the Kris Kristofferson, Gene Clark mode that is stronger because it demonstrates Simpson's authentic songwriting <i>before</i> lightly breaking the Nashville sonic mold (unforgettable album closer "It Ain't All Flowers").</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><b>9. Big K.R.I.T., <i>Cadillactica</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">No one seems willing to anoint Big K.R.I.T. "king of the south," so he made this 15-song case. This time, he leaves the production to others and refines his songwriting and hooks. Is there a better rapper in America?</span><br />
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><b>10. Run the Jewels, <i>RTJ2</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Best listened to divorced from thinkpieces on Ferguson, etc. (as if Killer Mike and El-P were the first rappers ever to protest police brutality), I prefer to think of <i>RTJ2</i> as the best rap-rock record since the <i>Judgment Night </i>soundtrack.</span>Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-11912668318665393372015-01-01T12:34:00.000-06:002015-01-01T13:06:56.348-06:00On A Jape I'm Returning: Aaron's Favorites, 2014<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>1. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, <i>Piñata</i></b><br />
Madlib paints with different colors than the rest of the game. He’s sui generis, way off the map. Gibbs, on the other hand, is a supremely gifted classicist. Their pairing shouldn’t work, but together they’ve produced the great lost blaxploitation soundtrack.<br />
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<b>2. YG, <i>My Krazy Life</i></b><br />
Not the first Compton bildungsroman, but one of the very best. A workmanlike MC, YG fights through every bar--with some big assists from a certain producer friend. Praise Mustard.<br />
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<b>3. Damon Albarn, <i>Everyday Robots</i></b><br />
Understated and stately, constructed on top of a heap of scrapped-together rhythms, <i>Robots</i> is Albarn’s missive from a monochrome planet. Not so gray, however, that it won’t let a quietly brilliant album slip through.<br />
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<b>4. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, <i>Black Messiah</i></b><br />
The shapeshifter is back, meditating amid soul of such richness and complexity that it should last us another 14 years. If the album title <i>was</i> about him, would you really object?<br />
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<b>5. DJ Quik, <i>The Midnight Life</i></b><br />
A tour through Quik’s ultra luxe LA rap, with a series of low-key legends riding shotgun. Too funky? Pretty much.<br />
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<b>6. Lee Fields & The Expressions, <i>Emma Jean</i></b><br />
A soul footnote contends with life, love and mortality, makes case for his own legend.<br />
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<b>7. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, <i>Wig Out at Jagbags</i></b><br />
Crooked melodies, golden jams: <i>Jagbags</i> dishes out a jambalaya of everything the guy’s been cooking. May he never stop.<br />
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<b>8. Ex Hex, <i>Rips</i></b><br />
Sometimes you just wanna rock the fuck out. Mary Timony feels you: these twelve garage tracks are vicious.<br />
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<b>9. ILoveMakonnen, <i>ILoveMakkonen</i></b><br />
Makkonen contorts his voice six ways from Tuesday, ends up somewhere between “stream-of-consciousness rapper” and “warbling R&B singer”. He seeks shelter in molly, the club, Brianna, Sarah and watches, doesn’t find it.<br />
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<b>10. New Pornographers, <i>Brill Bruisers</i></b><br />
Slinging the hulked-out harmonies that hooked you in the first place, cutting them with a few new flourishes.</div>
Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-43704400277343076152014-10-03T12:51:00.000-05:002014-10-10T11:20:50.540-05:00Review: Jimi: All is By My Side<div style="color: #4b4b4b; font-family: 'Advent Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25px; text-align: justify;">
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<i>[Note: This was a film review first published on Joyless Creatures <a href="http://www.joylesscreatures.com/review-archive/jimi-all-is-by-my-side">here</a>.]<br /></i><br />
Like <em mso-bidi-font-style:="" normal="" style="position: relative;">Deep Impact </em>and <em style="position: relative;">Armageddon</em>, right behind the James Brown biopic <em style="position: relative;">Get on Up</em> is <em style="position: relative;">Jimi: All is By My Side</em>. Starring Andre Benjamin (better known to many as Andre 3000 of OutKast), <em style="position: relative;">All is By My Side</em> vividly recreates the slang and fashions of 1966 London, while only rarely falling into the trap of rock nostalgia clichés and, in fact, ends up becoming a celebration of the purity and fearlessness of Hendrix’s approach to music.</div>
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There are a few films that stand out in relation to <em style="position: relative;">Jimi: All is By My Side</em>. <br />
One is the 1995 film <em style="position: relative;">Backbeat</em>, which covered the early, pre-songwriting <br />
days of the Beatles, therefore avoiding mammoth Lennon/McCartney licensing <br />
fees. The Hendrix family estate, which is notoriously protective of Jimi’s <br />
catalog, refused to allow any songs in <em style="position: relative;">All is By My Side</em>. Subsequently the<br />
film has to skip over some musical bits when showing the recording of the<br />
first album <em style="position: relative;">Are You Experienced?</em> but otherwise the lack of Hendrix <br />
compositions is not a major flaw in this film.<br />
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The other film this reminds me of is <em style="position: relative;">Velvet Goldmine</em>, where David Bowie <br />
notoriously forbade any of his songs on the soundtrack, marking a keen <br />
absence in a film that is basically about his life. Like <em mso-bidi-font-style:="" normal="" style="position: relative;">Velvet Goldmine</em>,<br />
<em style="position: relative;">Jimi</em> has a narrative threadbare quality and does not shy away from the <br />
ugly side of its subject’s behavior.</div>
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The movie is also distinguished in that it gives almost equal time to female <br />
roles. Imogen Poots is Linda Keith, the teenage model who first discovered <br />
quiet guitarist Jimmy James playing backup for Curtis Knight & the Squires <br />
to an audience of a dozen people. Keith, then the girlfriend of Rolling Stones <br />
guitarist Keith Richards, tries to enlist the help of their manager Andrew <br />
“Loog” Oldham, who pronounces him “rubbish.” Keith is tenacious and goes <br />
through every connection she has in the music industry. No one is interested <br />
except Chas Chandler (Andrew Buckley), bassist for the Animals, who is <br />
planning to quit and manage some new acts. He knows the blues and realizes<br />
that Jimi is something special. Before long, he has managed to convince a <br />
reluctant Hendrix to go to England, where white audiences are more receptive<br />
to black blues players.<br />
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Jimi and Linda have a connection, but it is promptly cut off when Kathy <br />
Etchingham (Hayley Atwell), a hairdresser, enters the picture. Theirs is a <br />
romance that has its shares of troubles. Director John Ridley does a great job <br />
making each of these women full, rounded characters—yes, Kathy is portrayed <br />
as sometimes frivolous and in love with her partner’s rock n roll stardom, she is <br />
also acutely human, capable of warmth and understanding, not always jealous or <br />
mean-spirited or soul-sucking as these types of roles tend to be. Atwell does a great <br />
job inhabiting the part.<br />
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The main acting accolades, of course, have to go to Andre, perhaps my <br />
favorite musician of the past 20 years. He had been rumored to be working <br />
on the role longer than a decade ago, and now at 39, he is a great deal older <br />
than the part—a decade and a half at least. But being far past Hendrix’s age <br />
was probably a minor challenge, compared to other difficulties.<br />
<br />
One thing about Hendrix that makes him so amazing to watch, and one of the <br />
few guitar geniuses that no one can really imitate, is that he was left-handed, <br />
but played a right-handed guitar upside down. Benjamin is right-handed and <br />
switching to a left-handed guitar is no easy thing, let alone playing it upside <br />
down. According to Benjamin, who actually is a guitar player (of limited skill, <br />
by his own admission), it took months of grueling practice to mime the parts <br />
in this film. He is not actually playing, but he did master the fingering to look <br />
like a reasonable facsimile, and that by itself is almost as difficult. Imagine <br />
being asked to play exactly like Mozart, but on a piano whose keys are inverted, <br />
while hanging upside down. That should give you a general idea of the level of <br />
difficulty here.</div>
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Then there’s the additional factor that Hendrix played these difficult guitar parts<br />
with such ease and confidence. Making all of his performances look natural and <br />
unrehearsed must have been the hardest part. Benjamin even kept in character <br />
during the entire Dublin shoot, speaking to Ridley and his fellow actors in Hendrix’s<br />
dated hippie-dippie slang. All of this is Daniel Day-Lewis-level commitment and far<br />
more than I ever expected from 3000 as an actor.<br />
<br />
This fan of Hendrix’s guitar-playing appreciates that so much time was put into <br />
making Andre’s fretwork look authentic. Often in music biopics, the actors, no <br />
matter how much they embody the part, look less than convincing playing <br />
instruments onstage. Benjamin’s past as a charismatic rapper and performer <br />
comes in handy here. Considering Hendrix was so dedicated to pushing forward<br />
the guitar as a sonic instrument of infinite variety and capacity, it makes sense <br />
that the film would put so much care into making the playing look and sound authentic.<br />
<br />
Overall, it’s an uncanny impersonation, not just because Andre looks the part <br />
somewhat. There are some things that even Benjamin cannot emulate—he <br />
doesn’t possess Hendrix’s giant hands, for instance—but he changes his entire <br />
voice, losing the nasal southern tones we associate so heavily with OutKast, <br />
and replaces that with Hendrix’s pacific northwest gilt, his protruding lower <br />
lip, and his overall soft voice and booming tone. Late in the film there is the <br />
famous performance of the Experience doing an almost punk version of “Sgt. <br />
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” two days after the album release, in front <br />
of an audience that included the Beatles. I have seen this performance many <br />
times in various rock documentaries and was amazed at Benjamin’s <br />
impersonation, his commitment to the moments I remember like moving up <br />
the fret board with the palm of his hand, telling the audience to “cover your <br />
ears,” the part where he throws the cigarette down just before singing—<br />
overall, it was an uncanny recreation of the television experience. You can <br />
see in this scene how Hendrix and Benjamin, though very different types of <br />
artists, approach their music with a similar purity of intention.</div>
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This is normal subject matter in biopics, but Ridley does a great job illuminating<br />
his subject’s flaws while not ever treating them as the unfortunate but necessary<br />
affectations of the “genius artist.” Ridley portrays Hendrix as inarticulate at times<br />
and sometimes too quick to resort to stock hippie phrases like “when the power of<br />
love overcomes the love of power,” at one point rambling about aliens to a groupie.<br />
Race is not a major factor in the film, but it does come up a few times as Hendrix is<br />
accosted by British police and meets with radical drug dealer Michael X, who <br />
describes the history of segregation in London and asks the guitarist to be a symbol<br />
to the black British as Hendrix tries to demure, saying “that’s not my bag, man.” <br />
The subtext here, as is common throughout the film, is Hendrix’s relationship with <br />
white women and his unease with African-American audiences.<br />
<br />
In fact, Ridley’s script goes deep into Hendrix’s psyche. There is of course the matter <br />
of his absent mother, which fed his idealized conceptions of the women he slept with, <br />
as well as a distant, terrorizing father. Ridley also implies that Hendrix might have had <br />
depression, social anxiety, acute fear of conflict, as well as violent mood swings and <br />
dependency (both chemical and physical) issues. On the other hand, his generally mild <br />
demeanor belied a lot of confidence about his guitar skills (as well it should). This is <br />
most hilariously expressed in the scene where Eric Clapton invites Hendrix to play <br />
Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” (a song he would later massacre at the Monterey <br />
Pop Festival) with Cream onstage, and unplugs his guitar and walks out upon <br />
realizing he is no longer needed.<br />
<br />
The film is meandering at times, focusing on intimate and small moments in<br />
Hendrix’s everyday conversations with women, while other parts are formula<br />
biopic, such as when Jimi’s Monterey Pop Festival gig is put on notice after he<br />
spends an entire performance tuning his guitar. Thankfully, by only spending a<br />
year early in Hendrix’s career, we are spared the common narrative of his <br />
drug-fueled spiral and eventual death. In fact, <em style="position: relative;">All is By My Side</em> ends on a happy<br />
note, as Benjamin-as-Hendrix tries to explain to his audience his pure and <br />
transcendent love for music, and how he hopes it has the power to inspire <br />
others. Maybe it’s not the note of realism that a typical biopic would choose to<br />
end on (that would be a scene of Hendrix asphyxiating on barbiturates), but it <br />
honors the musician’s spirit perhaps more than any other ending. For once, a <br />
musical biopic is as much about the music as the man. I can dig.</div>
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Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-63815086316863946982014-06-30T09:46:00.000-05:002014-06-30T17:18:21.164-05:00Stones on Film: A Quick Break<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1458865.ece/alternates/s615b/Bill%20Wyman%20with%20the%20Stones" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article1458865.ece/alternates/s615b/Bill%20Wyman%20with%20the%20Stones" height="320" width="250" /></a></div>
We will be pausing our feature Stones on Film briefly in order to finish the remaining few installments. In the meantime, the Minneapolis film blog <a href="http://www.joylesscreatures.com/">Joyless Creatures</a> has been posting some of the highlights of this series, including <i><a href="http://www.joylesscreatures.com/feature-articles/stones-on-film-sympathy-for-the-devil">Sympathy for the Devil</a></i> and <i><a href="http://www.joylesscreatures.com/feature-articles/stones-on-film-gimme-shelter">Gimme Shelter</a></i>. In non-music related matters, I have recently begun reviewing films for the site, <a href="http://www.joylesscreatures.com/review-archive/category/nathansacks">here</a> and <a href="http://www.joylesscreatures.com/feature-articles/category/nathansacks">here</a>. Back shortly.Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-68704482839554706422014-06-23T08:12:00.000-05:002014-06-23T08:13:34.371-05:00Stones on Film Week Seven: Cocksucker Blues (1972)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjwYtBT1FXer6U4RPJ9AiWMp1CFkXk4X9Nnq4pIOOW2CsykIAr3UvxCDNjPGHLJIm57RbVNHVWq5UUViiSMF5OAf2OtcELJ75Z5_vg5gOlb_x_m4i-qXAgcKeQLr8tRBt4grdcqOYcx4/s320/csblues.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjwYtBT1FXer6U4RPJ9AiWMp1CFkXk4X9Nnq4pIOOW2CsykIAr3UvxCDNjPGHLJIm57RbVNHVWq5UUViiSMF5OAf2OtcELJ75Z5_vg5gOlb_x_m4i-qXAgcKeQLr8tRBt4grdcqOYcx4/s320/csblues.JPG" /></a></div>
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<b>Directed by: Robert Frank</b></div>
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<b>Available: Nowhere</b><i style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></i><br />
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<i style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are reading Stones on Film, a 13-part dialogue covering notable Rolling Stones documentary and concert films through a critical lens. Today is week seven. Archive <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/search/label/Stones%20on%20Film" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">here</a>.</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Starting with an odd disclaimer stating that the events in the film are fictitious, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a bluish blur of the Rolling Stones’ traveling circus as it stood in 1972. There’s groupie sex, on-camera heroin use, and the grinding boredom of touring life.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-6a301781-c8d8-b23d-9ddc-e3e004a3e3ae" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I actually wrote about this film for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rockaliser</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> after my first viewing, </span><a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2009/08/english-blood-runs-hot.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in 2009</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (the comments section features Nathan violently disagreeing with me about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sticky Fingers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). I hit the typical beats--the band’s sybaritic lifestyle, the Jagger/Richards divide, the great music, the horrible misogyny. Given that these things dominate discussion of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and that I already covered them (in the wordy, circuitous style I was taken with in 2009), I’ll try and avoid those and concentrate on the stray thoughts and questions that popped up as I watched the film.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But first, a couple paragraphs of context. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the work of Robert Frank, whose eye for Americana led the Stones to use his photos on the cover of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The footage here covers the 1972 tour of America, the first time the band had played in the country since Altamont. Frank basically loaned out cameras to the Stones entourage, and ran around shooting footage himself. Fans of high production values will be in agony at the extremely unstable, off-color cinematography here. To call it cinema verite or direct cinema is an affront to the talent of the people who filmed </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t Look Back</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Frank emerged from his hole with a version of the film, Jagger reportedly said that he was worried it would get the group banned from America. Frank </span><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-trouble-with-cocksucker-blues-19771103" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thought</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the public would find the Stones behavior “revolting.” One lawsuit later, Frank was only legally permitted to show the film five times a year, with the stipulation that he himself be present and the it be shown in the context of his work, not the Stones. (The Stones have </span><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/blogs/alternate-take/the-greatest-rolling-stones-movie-youve-never-seen-cocksucker-blues-20121120" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">loosened</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/oct/09/popandrock" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">up</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about this in the last few years) The scarcity of the film--and the stories that grew up around it--led to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> legendary status.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it certainly doesn’t disappoint, in terms of prurient content. With an eye towards presenting the film in the context of the Stones work and world, five thoughts inspired by </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How absurd is it that the Stevie Wonder would open for the Stones?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> He was at least as big as the Stones, with two Number One hits in 1972 alone. Don’t get me wrong, seeing a young, sinewy Stevie launch into a Stonesified “Uptight” and seguing into “Satisfaction” is great. But he was in his auteur period at this point, and was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">huge</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. What does it say about the record business at the time that Stevie would have to open for a band who couldn’t score a hit in 1972? And why don’t we get any backstage interactions with Stevie? Did he partake in the Stones lifestyle?</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s also interesting to plot Wonder’s evolution against the Stones’. Stevie was trying radical things, creating searching, spiritual music with synths. The Stones, for all their brilliance, were fucking around refining something they were already great at.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> could not be more different from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. They cover roughly the same period, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> borrows footage from Frank’s film. But the slick professionalism of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is nowhere to be found here. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is like something you’d see mounted on a wall at an art gallery. It’s a bunch of context-less shards of their lifestyle. The camera will spin around a room, or cut to entirely different scenes while letting the audio track from that room play out. It probably captures the disorienting feeling of being inside this world better than a retrospective, talking head doc.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are tons of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spinal Tap </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">moments here</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. None more so than the band’s long backstage march to the arena floor. It’s a half step away from </span><a href="http://vimeo.com/26226974" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this classic scene</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. What was your favorite?</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The excess is the appeal</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Not breaking any ground here, but it needs to be said. Everytime I saw something sick--Keith nodding off, the band playing along to a woman being stripped of her clothes (possibly against her will), Mick rubbing his crotch and doing coke off a knife (separate scenes, those)--this thought struck me. You can watch it and think “lol rockstars”. You can watch it and say “it’s a historical record”. But this film became legendary because of the excess, the drug use and degradation. Why else would people still watch a shittily-shot and confusingly edited documentary about a band that features only a few, poorly-recorded concert snippets? The Stones tried to can a documentary that painted them as even more debauched than their quite debauched public profile. And then the rumors of that documentary further burnished their outlaw credentials, for good or ill.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just recording whatever’s in fashion that year</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. That, basically, is Mick’s response to a question about the recording of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The band just records whatever’s in fashion that year. Doesn’t particularly make sense in the context of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but it goes a long way towards explaining “Miss You,” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Emotional Rescue</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the shitty production values (</span><a href="http://wwwrollingstones.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2012/07/mzi.zqupepmz.600x600-75.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and color palettes</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) that the Stones later embraced. Those weren’t artistic evolutions, that was Jagger willing the band to keep up with the times.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What do you think of the track “Cocksucker Blues,” by the way? I’m a fan of the full band version, myself, which you don’t hear in the film. The one we get here is spare and weirdly beautiful, a song about assfucking in the style of “Gates of Eden”.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the record, the least </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spinal Tap</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> moment in the film features Charlie, sitting by himself in a hotel room and watching a TV commercial for Excedrin. Poor Charlie.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apart from perhaps </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Four Flicks</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the Stones’ most difficult-to-watch contribution to celluloid. There is very little context for what is going on throughout, which consequently makes this film hard to review. Scenes and images go by, some of which are memorable, but there is no continuity or greater idea holding scenes together. It has no beginning or ending, nor any internal structure at all, really. It provides glimpses into the Stones’ backstage lifestyle, includes flashes of various drugs, sexual situations, and celebrities, and then ends abruptly.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You said “fans of high production value will be in agony.” I would broaden that category to fans of remotely passable sound quality. Maybe it was the version I saw, but </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has frustrating sound throughout, juxtaposing live dialogue with TV and radio narrations as well as bits of live and studio Stones recordings, mainly from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. These sound collages are often random and make it even more difficult to tell what is going on. By comparison, the occasional mangled-sounding narration in Godard’s film is not even a distraction. Often the dialogue does not fit with the mouths of the actors, and the sound is clearly out of sync with the video throughout many non-Jagger shots in the live scenes.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You referred to what appears to be an amazingly dynamic Stones and Stevie Wonder live performance, where they do the “Everything’s Alright”/”Satisfaction” medley with Jim Price and Bobby Keys on brass. At least it appears to be--the film’s sound only gives hints of the gloriousness that audience goers were able to behold, I am sure. The young, skinny Wonder’s energy is infectious, but everything sounds tinny and blocked. My father owns many a Stones bootleg that sounds better than this.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It does not surprise me that Stevie Wonder would be opening for the Stones at this stage in his career. Remember that Wonder, for all his longevity, was still a “Black” act. He did well, but opening for the Stones put him in front of stadium crowds, which was a level I am not sure he could achieve on his own in 1972. I imagine that is what prompted many of the older bluesmen to open for the Stones as well. It was possibly the largest platform that many of these artists would ever get. Incidentally one of the more memorable parts of the film shows Muddy Waters and the band playing pool, and Muddy laughing at a terrible shot by Charlie.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The depravity in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> reaches near-snuff film levels at times. We have commented on the thread through many of these documentaries where the Stones have repressed them, North Korea-style, but in this case I can very much see where the Stones were coming from. Even Robert Frank agrees that the Stones look appalling. Surely he must have known this as he was filming, right? Jagger seems specifically inhuman for the way in which he sort of glides through the naked, barely-conscious groupies philosophizing and professing his boredom and gradual dislike of the extended Stones entourage. The other members of the band, like Mick Taylor, are no better (at one point Taylor barges into the room of a naked groupie to smoke her joint--this is among the more casual scenes of groupies).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can’t help but wonder how various celebrities like Andy Warhol, Dick Cavett, and Tina Turner thought about being included in the film. Possibly another motivation for suppressing the film, as well as its opening disclaimer (“no representation of actual persons or events is intended”). Relatedly, my personal favorite </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Spinal Tap</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-type moment is when Dick Cavett attempts to interview the group, and instead admit to his audience he only got Bill Wyman.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think there is room for a great documentary about the bacchanalian backstage behavior of rock stars and their treatment toward women. This isn’t it; not even close. Some of the situations described in the film are truly shocking. Heroin use, right in front of the camera, abounds (not from Keith, though. Guess he was careful). A woman talks about how her child was taken away from her because of her acid use. She threatens to kill herself and says “my life is already half-wrecked.” This is heartbreaking stuff. The viewer instinctively wants to reach out and help this woman. How come no one filming seems concerned? As far as I can tell Robert Frank chose to shoot these vile situations for no other reason other than exploitative glee, or perhaps for “historical value”--all a matter of perspective, I guess.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How much pleasure were you able to glean from the live scenes? It is difficult to tell, but the 1972 tour marks another sort of musical turn of for the band, where the Stones started taking a more extended jam route. Led Zeppelin was the most popular group in the world and even artists like the Stones were paying attention, not that they would admit it. Check out the breakdown in the version of “Midnight Rambler” and watch at how the band members look at each other; they are trying to stretch the song out in new directions and are unsure where to go (look at Taylor’s face).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today I view </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as sort of the filmic equivalent of Robert Frank’s photographs in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s liner notes. The photographs look impressive, but they are meant to be a supplement to the album. The photos do not convey any larger or coherent meaning because they are meant to look good. So is the case of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Except ultimately it does not look very good. Or sound very good. Refresh me: what good reasons are there to preserve this film again? You said “the excess is the appeal,” but are there parts of the film that are actually appealing?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: So...zero stars then?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Say what you will about the Stones, but they did have some great opening acts on the American tours. Stevie Wonder, Ike and Tina, even Prince. Then again, they </span><a href="http://www.timeisonourside.com/guests.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">apparently</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> brought along also-rans The Groundhogs and Merlin on their 1971 UK Tour. Perhaps that’s why Mick called that jaunt “sad” in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But back to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The best reason to preserve the film is because destroying docs is like destroying books. It just shouldn’t be done. That doesn’t mean this is a good documentary. I go to school with a bunch of folks who study documentary production, and I can assure you that it is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that they study.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If there’s value to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it’s a few scenes of fleeting interest. Seeing Charlie struggle at billiards brought a smile to my face. The Cavett moment you point out is great. There’s also (one assumes) a large cache of unseen footage documenting this time. It’s a primary source--maybe for a better documentary, or the history books, or what have you.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It sounds like my copy of the film was slightly higher quality that yours. I enjoyed all the musical numbers. The fidelity isn’t great, but the songs were the high points.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A quick rundown: “Jumping Jack Flash” is ferocious, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exiled</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-out with horns and the counterpoint of the hyperactive Jagger against the motionless Taylor. “Midnight Rambler” is excerpted, but we get Jagger crouched and gradually rising as Richards and Taylor trade death blows on their guitars. “All Down The Line” is sweaty, with Taylor going wild. “Happy” is barbed, transformed into a duet between Richards and Jagger. And the “Uptight/Satisfaction” is a joy.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During these performances, we barely glimpse the audience. Who were these people? The wrecked life of an acid-eating mother is about all we get, and it’s sensationalistic. It would have affirmed every fear of the American Right, had this movie been released.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There seems to be very little interest in the little people, generally. That includes Wyman, Taylor and Watts, but the audiences most of all. Maybe that’s a relic of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie Is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-era bad memories, or Rock God aloofness. But it’s hard to miss that the Stones and their retinue don’t seem particularly grateful towards the folks subsidizing their lifestyle. I listened to </span><a href="http://www.maximumfun.org/bullseye/bullseye-jesse-thorn-bubba-sparxxx-and-ian-mackaye" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">an interview with Ian MacKaye</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> yesterday, where he discussed the needless greed and bloat of the touring industry--and the Stones embody that more than anyone. Such arrogance and entitlement, even then. The scene where Mick kvetches about touring is particularly telling, as if he doesn’t have more power than anyone to set the tone of the tour.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also--what’s Mick’s deal with American food? He says during that car ride that you can only eat well in the American South. Like that guy wasn’t eating like a king in New York and London.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stepping back a bit, I couldn’t help but reflect on how easy it would be to make a film like this today. We carry around cameras in our pockets that put Frank’s equipment to shame. So why don’t we have people chronicling the tours of the twenty-first century? Has music really moved that far away from the center of our culture? Are the 2014 equivalents of Andy Warhol and Truman Capote hanging out backstage at the Yeezus tour? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or maybe tour docs are just a bad idea--like songs about touring that aren’t “Memory Motel”. Maybe we don’t really want to know what going on backstage.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Mick claims that the best food comes from the South, which maybe isn’t true, but I do not doubt that the soul food he ate on the road was ways better than the British food back home. Wyman probably disagrees.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I may have came off as too harsh in the previous response. Certainly I do not mean to imply that historical footage should be destroyed if it captures acts I find disagreeable. Zero stars may be a bit much, but as I said in the previous response, this film is almost impossible to review. It sometimes views as the rough cut of footage that was never edited or shaped into a discernible narrative. I will look into finding a better version of the film’s sound (a search on YouTube yielded the same sound quality level).</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I did not get to your question in the first entry about “Cocksucker Blues” the song. One of the more lucid moments of the film is at the beginning, where Marshall Chess, son of legendary Chess Records owner Leonard Chess, talks up a dirty song project that never came to fruition, which is where “Cocksucker Blues” came from. One can only imagine what that compilation might have been like, but one song was apparently Dr. John’s “I Believe I’ll Eat Some Pussy Tonight.” Anyway, I like the song. There is a lot of empty space in this spare version--perhaps not typical of the Stones at this period, but the crudeness of the lyrics adds to the melody in an odd way. It’s a song about loneliness, perhaps not surprisingly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I thought a lot about the likelihood of a concert doc like this coming out today. Certainly it seems as if any modern artist who had the popularity to put out a concert film is likely concerned with his/her/their public image to the degree that these depictions could never be shown on camera. Justin Bieber’s recent flick is a good example. The rumors are that his public behavior is depraved and unsettling; the film features Bieber basically trying to explain away his actions.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If there is a modern antecedent to this today, it seems less any modern documentary style and more the sex tapes and naked pics of celebrities that get leaked and proliferate around the Internet. American culture is luridly fascinated with the excesses of rock star behavior, which is often coupled with a Puritan tendency to judge and castigate that behavior. I think that both approaches are extreme, and that an artist’s worth ultimately should be judged by the quality of the art. Which is not to say that bad behavior does not matter--it just does not figure into my overall appreciation of the art itself. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe with the proliferation of personal cameras, such behavior would be easier to capture and portray. But today’s major artists have to be more careful now than the Eagles, Stones, and Zeppelin of the past. Rock stars don’t talk up their groupies the way they used to, and those who do (Kings of Leon come to mind) seem crass and old-fashioned, and the backlash is often severe. Filming groupies naked and in their moments of weakness would be considered a sexist and unconscionable act by today’s standards, unless there were a damn good reason for doing so. A documentarian would have to be very careful about portraying this behavior without making it look good.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honestly, to Frank’s credit, he doesn’t make it look good. The listless, bored look on Mick’s face tells us everything we need to know. Here the Stones were, in perhaps their greatest iteration, on their greatest tour in support of their greatest album. There is a special purity to their live show here. And yet the joy completely leaves the band as soon as they get off stage. The world’s greatest rock n roll band was becoming a brand, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, to its credit, didn’t come close to fitting within it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Addendum: Hate to be the classic rock pedant again, but “Thank Christ for the Bomb” is a great song by the Groundhogs.</span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-80570424432901081282014-06-16T12:07:00.000-05:002014-06-16T12:07:13.131-05:00Stones on Film Week Six: Stones in Exile (2011)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD4N3fpndPBEQ1vGqB4dl6zdRzzjDfLwnHxNFxtm-EIs6TZnbn7H_jI21OFfcsDgdh2qhXt0P_QVg6fAMhBK4oNH1JPjiIp2DlMObH3pWSE8cHS_EIPia5yQVIds9f-Eyrzh4jbYVrqg/s1600/Exile.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD4N3fpndPBEQ1vGqB4dl6zdRzzjDfLwnHxNFxtm-EIs6TZnbn7H_jI21OFfcsDgdh2qhXt0P_QVg6fAMhBK4oNH1JPjiIp2DlMObH3pWSE8cHS_EIPia5yQVIds9f-Eyrzh4jbYVrqg/s1600/Exile.png" height="200" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Directed by: Stephen Kijak</b></div>
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<b>Available on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stones-Exile-Stephen-Kijak/dp/B003GCMX5Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1402938137&sr=8-1&keywords=stones+in+exile">DVD </a>and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stones-Exile-Blu-ray-The-Rolling/dp/B00DPH7TTK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1402938137&sr=8-2&keywords=stones+in+exile">Blu-Ray</a></b></div>
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<i style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are reading Stones on Film, a 13-part dialogue covering notable Rolling Stones documentary and concert films through a critical lens. Today is week six. Archive <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/search/label/Stones%20on%20Film" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">here</a>.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> We will be cheating a bit chronologically, as we are now into the era of the early ‘70s Stones, but are reviewing a documentary from 2011. Since the era explored in this film immediately follows </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, it made sense to feature this film next. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s making and subsequent release is an odd story. The documentary is essentially one of those “Classic Album” VH1 specials, except spread over the course of an hour. The documentaries usually involve in-depth interviews with primary musicians and songwriters which are interspersed with older concert and studio footage. Each song on the album is usually discussed at some length, and often the album’s producer or engineer will be on-camera to play original or alternate takes from the master recordings. I like these documentaries a lot because they focus more on the craft of songwriting, playing music, and recording, as opposed to “Behind the Music”-level documentaries that focus on gossip and drug addiction and other sexy, irrelevant factors.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One other common aspect of these documentaries, unfortunately, is the presence of celebrity fans. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has this, but to its credit, filmmaker Stephen Kijak consigns generally worthless commentary from Benicio Del Toro, Sheryl Crow, Jack White and others to the immediate beginning and end of the film. The rest of it focuses almost exclusively on the five official Stones, their regular session players at the time (Bobby Keys, Nicky Hopkins, and Jim Price) and the girlfriends, associates, and children who stayed in Keith Richards’ lavish Nellcote mansion during the album’s recording.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was surprised by how much I liked </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which shrieks “vanity project” from beginning to end. The film seemed to have been made almost as an excuse for the Stones to get something into the Cannes Festival in 2010. However, Mick Jagger’s choice of filmmaker, Stephen Kijak, somehow made something watchable and sometimes even educational. Kijak, a feature filmmaker, documentarian, and Cassavetes acolyte, had previously made the docs </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cinemania</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (about obsessive, lonely film addicts) and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scott Walker: 20th Century Man</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. He covers the major beats of any </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> retrospective, but gets in a lot of good, new commentary. I’ve read a lot about the Stones, Nellcote, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but even then this film told me something new about the album, whose story has already been excessively documented. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even with that, there is something weird about watching this film, a feeling as if history is being revised before your eyes. Those only familiar with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s latter-day canonicity may not realize that this was not always a beloved and respected album. What’s more, the album’s greatest detractor in the past 30 years was probably Mick Jagger. He was legendarily unhappy with the final mix of the record, especially his vocals. There are also rumors that he never liked it because of what he perceived as Keith’s larger stamp on the project. For years, he had always expressed bewilderment at the album’s fans, pointing out it didn’t have anything close to a “Brown Sugar” or “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”-level hit.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here we find Mick Jagger along with Charlie Watts at the beginning of this documentary, telling the camera, “When I started talking about making this film, I said we’re never gonna do this, we’re never gonna go to where we recorded it.” Yet there they are. Kijak films septuagenarians Jagger and Watts walking around an empty room in black and white, the Olympic Studios location where they mixed and overdubbed </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The banter between the two elder men is charming, though it does remind me of Tony Soprano’s remark that “‘remember when’ is the lowest form of conversation.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You could say it is mercenary and even typical for Jagger to have a big anniversary for an album he never liked because of the critical regard it later accumulated. Honestly, however, I found that Jagger had come to a surprisingly reasonable viewpoint regarding the album’s success. At the beginning of the film, he says: “When you come back to something you did 40 years ago, it doesn’t really matter--you’ve gotta look back at the big picture, you got really good things out of it.” This is a surprisingly fresh perspective from Jagger.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The end of the film finally acknowledges that Jagger was not originally a fan of the record. “I mean, it’s a different kind of a record. It’s a very sprawling, gutsy piece of work. The criticism of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was that it didn’t have a direction. But there’s also something very laudable about it, that it exhibits all these styles, and even multiple styles in one song. Does it have tons of, like, hit singles in it? No, it isn’t that kind of record.” His observations are laudable and open-minded, not typically what I would expect from Jagger these days. Has he come to consider it the masterpiece that I and so many others describe? No, but he understands where the love comes from. There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind about a record. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rest of the film systematically describes the Stones’ tax troubles, their final English tour, their move to France, and the drug and sex-fueled recording adventures of the next year. The film consists of a lot of familiar footage from films we have already discussed, but there were a few surprises. I was especially intrigued by footage of their British farewell tour in 1970, which Jagger describes as “rather sort of sad.” The film discusses with some detail the difficult process of making the move to France (Charlie and Bill especially hate it) and new characters in the Stones extended family like photographer Dominique Tarlé</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The famous photographs taken by</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tarlé, who is interviewed extensively here, showed the Stones at the peak of their physical attractiveness, right at the moment in time where heavy heroin use was beginning but had not yet taken its toll on Keith, Anita, and others.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The film gets two things very right, with caveats in each case. One is when Tarlé says “The Rolling Stones at the time, it is not a five-piece band anymore. It is an eight-piece band.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, more than any other Stones album, is the work not just of a core band but of a series of session musicians and engineers (Andy Johns and Jimmy Miller in particular) without which the record’s sound would be completely different. Thank goodness that Kijak recognizes the important contributions of non-members Bobby Keys, Jim Price, and Nicky Hopkins. Keys is a particularly memorable interviewee, though we only see what he looks like in old footage--just as well, as his Texan narration makes him sound just shy of a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">King of the Hill</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> character (he says “that’s when you’re shittin’ in tall cotton” at one point). </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, the film leaves out the detail that even the original five-piece at the time was transitive. Wyman’s bass parts in particular were often played by Richards or Bill Plummer. Watts was unable to nail some of the drum parts, and Jimmy Miller was called up to play in his stead. Of the original Stones, only Jagger appears on every track on the album (including backing vocals on “Happy”).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other thing the film gets right is when it shows the human costs of the Stones’ sybaritic lifestyle. It is not a long scene, but the interview with Jake Weber illustrates the callousness toward bystanders that is a byproduct of the rock ‘n roll life. Weber is an actor now, who was eight years old when his father sold drugs to the Stones in Nellcote. Allegedly, his father tasked him with muling cocaine for Mick and Bianca’s wedding. “If you’re living a decadent life, there’s darkness there,” Weber says, talking about his days as an 8-year old when his function was to roll joints for his father’s famous friends. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For an instant, the romantic spell over Nellcote is lifted. Unfortunately, the band never gets to offer their perspective on how they may have destroyed other people’s lives, though they do identify Nellcote as the start of Keith’s heroin addiction. At this point, though, the man has talked so much about his struggles with heroin that he should get a PhD in the subject. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s so much to talk about about this documentary and this record, which I have probably listened to more than any other ever. But I have one final, overarching question, my friend: how disgusted were you by those British foods Bill Wyman imported to the south of France?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Those foods seemed truly revolting. Pity Bill (and Charlie, who apparently hated moving*), too homesick for the simple life to enjoy the French Riviera. There’s some truly classic Wyman in this film, from his grousing about tax rates to a scene where he seems genuinely unsure if the band is actually leaving England, and double checks with a reporter.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I, too, was surprised to find myself enjoying the film. It’s lightweight, sure, and a total vanity project. But, as you say, it’s an opportunity to get into the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">story beyond the boring old “they left for tax reasons.” There’s lots of great pictures and footage, and even, yes, some insight from the principals.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But yes, back to </span><a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.mx/2012/03/rock-taxes-treasury-of-whiny-rich.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">those taxes</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Rich people complaining about taxes is never a good look, but it’s a critical part of the story here. Kijak gives it about the right amount of play, including Watts’ observation that fleeing England to dodge taxes was “really not very cool.”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve always wondered how broke the band actually was. Allen Klein, their old manager, screwed them over. No doubt about that. But the Rolling Stones decamped to France in a private fucking jet. Mick Taylor, whose alarmingly gruff current-day voice doesn’t match the baby-faced kid he was in 1972, seemed surprised that they took a jet. But then he was the junior Stone.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You get a nice sense of life in France from the doc. The little details fill in the broad strokes that most Stones fans are familiar with. I liked seeing Keef out with his son in the mornings, and knowing that’s when he cared for him. I found it interesting that Watts, who didn’t speak French and had to drive several hours to get to Nellcote, felt very isolated. And I loved the extravagant beards that Ringo and Paul sported at Mick and Bianca’s wedding. (Two asides here: what did the Stones have against beards? And the specter of the Beatles </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">still</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hung over this band, even in 1972.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It gets a bit talking head-y at times, and Kijak uses still photos, recreates some scenes and pulls footage from other docs. I’d love to see the Nellcote era get the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> treatment, but the footage just isn’t there. Thank god photographer Dominique Tarlé was--though he consciously avoided the places where the unflattering stuff was going down.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the film kind of does the same. It paints a generally happy, debauched picture of Nellcote, and then acknowledges about three-quarters of the way in that it got pretty dark too. The place was “cursed,” as Anita Pallenberg puts it. It’s astounding that we hear nothing about Gram Parsons, then Keith’s principal drug buddy. Parsons got himself kicked out of Nellcote by Keef, who was trying to avoid further drug charges as a result of rampant and sanctioned drug use at his home. Keef would struggle with addiction for years afterward; Parsons died of an overdose in 1973.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Transitioning here, did you find yourself wishing for those killer anecdotes about individual songs? Or unreleased stuff? There’s not a ton of that in the film for the hardcore fans. Instead, we have to settle for footage of Keith and Bobby Keyes (the movie’s MVP, by a mile) tossing a TV out the window, in all its childish glory. I’ll take it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The film in general, isn’t particularly concerned with the music. For me, the most startling revelation was that Jagger doesn’t hate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Otherwise, we didn’t get to hear too much critic-y stuff. I found myself wondering about the context of the record, musically. What were the Stones listening to in ‘72? Did they feel a sense of competition with newer, harder bands? (What did Jagger and Richards think of Plant and Page, anyway?) Or were they too stoned to give a shit?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve always considered </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a cousin to Sly & The Family Stone’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s A Riot Goin On</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. They’re druggy, dark, end-of-the-60’s records, recorded in mansions away from either group’s home turf. And they both have beautifully murky production. That haze doesn’t take away from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s songs, or obscure them--it’s part of the music, the heat and human drama of Nellcote making its way onto the record.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And there’s a sort of spiritual kinship, production-wise, with the scratchy old blues records from which the Stones plundered. Of course, they rarely did it this well, and never again at this insane level.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In Exile </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">doesn’t hold the key to the record. While it’s fun, do you feel like you can appreciate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> any differently now after watching the movie?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, let me close by thanking you for loaning me your CD copy of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ten years ago. That was a long time ago, but these songs have stayed with me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> You are very welcome. Glad you mentioned Parsons, whom I had completely forgotten about. H</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is fingerprints are all over the record, particularly the second side. The Stones had done plenty of country tunes in the past, of course, but new songs like “Torn and Frayed” and “Sweet Virginia” were rougher and more authentic takes on classic country and blues. Those songs were not humorous takes on past country standards (“Dead Flowers”) or crushing ballads (“No Expectations”). These rough, rugged, but ultimately beautiful tunes are among the primary early artifacts of what would come to be called (rather confusingly) “alt-country.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t feel any different about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> than I did prior to this film. Partly because I love it so much, and my appreciation is basically set in stone. As I said before, I’ve listened to the album hundreds of times, probably more than any other (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fun House</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Doolittle</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> come closest). I can recall nearly any moment of its 67:07 length from memory. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sound of the album continues to astound me. I remember the first time I bought </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in Best Buy and listened to it in the parking lot. The first song, “Rocks Off,” came on, and in the first three seconds I thought I heard the CD skipping, and assumed it was defective. I returned it, but my replacement copy had the same problem. Turns out that skip at the beginning of “Rocks Off” was part of the original recording, which now pleases me a great deal. Hard to think that Jagger would ever abide by such mistakes, then or today. I wish the film had taken time to talk about those opening three seconds.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was also intrigued by your comparison between </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a Riot Goin’ On</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It is curious how both albums are remembered as the best of the artists’ respective careers, and yet they represent unique moments where the album becomes more important than any single or song on the album (is this the original AOR?). </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of course had two singles (“Tumbling Dice” b/w “Sweet Black Angel” and “Happy” b/w “All Down the Line”), but none of them charted as high as mega hits “Brown Sugar,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” etc. I think the same is true of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Riot</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which is now well known as Sly’s greatest project, despite the lack of hits on the level of “Everday People” or “Dance to the Music” (you will have to tell me--was “Family Affair” a huge hit?). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The one big difference I would say is that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the work of many different producers and musicians who share authorship of the album. Whereas </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Riot</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was a far more personal project which found Sly Stone playing all instruments and replacing collaborators with drum machines. Still, there is a lot to compare between both albums’ lo-fi, drugged-out vibe.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> does an ok job of trying to convey the rough qualities of the album, but the doc itself is slick and efficient, not exactly the feel of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. As I said earlier, the celebrity interviews do not help, and are strikingly unilluminating (Jack White, I never want to see you in a documentary again). The earlier footage we mostly see in glimpses, which can be frustrating sometime. It is fun to imagine what filmmakers like the Maysles or Robert Frank might have done with a documentary crew at Nellcote. But the fact that never happened contributes to some of the album’s mystery--because only still photographs and glimpses of Keef’s basement and the time spent there exist, everyone’s listening experience with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">evokes something slightly different, because the album isn’t anchored or associated with moving images the way the Hyde Park or Altamont concerts were.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You mentioned a lot of things that the film, for all its strengths, are still missing. Tensions between band members, particularly Jagger/Richards and Taylor, mostly go unaddressed. Taylor had to fight to get a songwriting credit for “Ventilator Blues,” a song that revolves completely around his slide guitar. Unlike Wyman, who was willing to give up the credit for the “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” riff (and up to this point had only one solo songwriting credit, “In Another Land”), Taylor was not happy about Jagger and Richards’ iron grip on song credits. This would of course later lead to the departure of Taylor in the mid-70s and the introduction of Ron Wood, which signified the end of the Stones’ greatest era.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I forgot to mention that another reason Jagger supposedly disliked the album was that he was not happy with the vocal mix. He doesn’t mention that in the film. Why do you think Mick might have changed his mind? Was it the constant mentions in various “best albums” lists and paeans to the album’s greatness from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rolling Stone</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? Or has Jagger come to genuinely appreciate the album more with age? Both answers are simultaneously possible, I suppose. I wish the film had discussed more about what Mick did and didn’t like about the album in specific detail.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You ask what the Stones have against beards? Well, </span><a href="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQE4jvItMVXp_XaXQn50og6TtOjzv2KF9pezYamnzKGZJGznxbY" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here’s Mick</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--maybe Keef couldn’t grow facial hair? And here’s some </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X6S34luGuE" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">typically backhanded comments from Keith Richards on Led Zeppelin</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, if you have not read it already, I highly recommend Bill Janovitz’s excellent 33⅓ take on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which delves far more into musical particulars than this doc.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Never read the Janovitz book, which I’ve been meaning to for ages. You could do a sequel to this project by reading Stones books, which display a similar split between genuinely interesting chronicles and self-serving vanity projects. Those dualities often coexist in the same books.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I sense a bit of opportunism in Jagger’s belated embrace of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile On Main Street</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The film came out just around the time that a “super deluxe” edition of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was re-released. That the super deluxe edition is a disappointment (tons of overdubs on the songs, you can find boots that are better) wouldn’t dissuade a businessman of Jagger’s caliber--he a had a product to push. And it worked, the reissue sold pretty well. Before I watched this movie, I’d assumed that it was a bonus from that reissue.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another sidebar here, but you have to wonder if the Stones will </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ever</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> release another studio album (I think 2011’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some Girls</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> reissue and that greatest hits were their last releases of any sort). It’s been nine years since </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Bigger Bang</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and there doesn’t seem to be any movement towards a new one. Not that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Bigger Bang </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was good (feel free to disagree with me, </span><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/a-bigger-bang-20050922" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">random </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">RS</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hack</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), but we were both big fans of the 2012 track “Doom & Gloom.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The “new” record may be why the doc brought in a bunch of unaffiliated, unknowledgable “names” to lather praise on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Seems like something Jagger would back. Purely speculation here, but can you think of any other reason to solicit the opinion of Will.i.am, Caleb Followill or Benecio Del Toro? The album predates most of their births. If Bobby Keyes was the film’s MVP (he aptly describes the atmosphere at the chateau as “about as unrehearsed as a hiccup”), then surely Don Was’ opening quote on the sixties (“you either had to blow up the system or flee from it”) was the film’s nadir. Kijak was wise, as you note, to relegate these moments to beginning and end of the film.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But then again, maybe Mick </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> warmed to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Twenty years ago, he said “It’s got a raw quality, but I don’t think all around it’s as good.” But he’s getting on, perhaps he’s nostalgic, or reflective. But it’s hard to imagine him totally embracing an album--peerless as this one is--that totally encapsulates the Keith way of doing things.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for touching on the country side of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I’m a sucker for everything countryish that they did, as I’ve </span><a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.mx/2010/03/imaginary-album-rose-pink-cadillac.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">made clear</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Even among the fine company of Stones country, the second side of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is very special. Jagger drops the snideness and condescension that often mark those songs, and just croaks along to the beautiful music. Bury me to “Sweet Virginia,” please.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The film plays lip service to country--someone calls it something like “the other half of rock and roll”--but here, as elsewhere, doesn’t dive in too deep. Why, I wonder, did living in France inspire the Stones to pen a greater volume of country songs than ever before? Surely Gram Parsons had something to do with that, even though he’d yet to release anything as a solo artist.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You raise some interesting differences between this album and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s A Riot Goin On</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, starting with Sly’s one-man approach (though Sly gets crucial assists from Family Stone bassist Larry Graham). “Family Affair” is another one--that was a huge hit, a pop #1. But there’s still a kinship between </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Riot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and I think their murky production (along with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Murmur</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a decade later) radiated an authenticity that pointed towards lo-fi records 15 and 20 years later. Interesting to note that Liz Phair is thanked in the credits, but never appears in the film.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You raise the interesting point that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was among the first wave of AOR. Something in the air inspired the Stones to go long on this one. It was also among the first rock albums to undergo critical reevaluation. Lester Bangs called the album “maddeningly inconsistent and strangely depressing” upon its release, but later came to embrace the record. It can be a confusing if you come to it from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sticky Fingers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> or the Stones radio hits. But it makes a lot of sense in terms of the band’s history and personalities--I think the film represents that well. And I think you could love the think on the first spin, context or no.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At this point, most people who care love </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Maybe that makes it less dangerous, or unique. But no amount of praise, or enjoyable-enough documentaries, can blunt the impact of these songs. If, someday, the Stones are remembered for one record, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">would be a damn good one. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> would be a nice supplement, but the songs are all you need.</span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-89695977696106277692014-06-09T08:30:00.000-05:002014-06-09T14:24:52.160-05:00Stones on Film Week Five: Gimme Shelter (1969)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://theoriginalwinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/rolling-stones-gimme-shelter-597x376.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://theoriginalwinger.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/rolling-stones-gimme-shelter-597x376.jpg" height="201" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Directed by: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin</b></div>
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<b>Available on A<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Gimme-Shelter-Rolling-Stones/dp/B00E5WXSDA/ref=sr_1_2?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1402241413&sr=1-2&keywords=gimme+shelter">mazon Instant</a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stones-Shelter-Criterion-Collection/dp/B00004YZFR/ref=sr_1_4?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1402241390&sr=1-4&keywords=gimme+shelter">DVD</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stones-Shelter-Criterion-Collection/dp/B002P8O29K/ref=sr_1_5?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1402241390&sr=1-5&keywords=gimme+shelter">Blu-Ray</a></b><br />
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You are reading Stones on Film, a 13-part dialogue covering notable Rolling Stones documentary and concert films through a critical lens. Today is week Five. Archive <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/search/label/Stones%20on%20Film" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">here</a>.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: There are many great shots in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the 1970 documentary by the Maysles brothers and Charlotte Zwerin. But the central, bone-chilling image shows a man in black vest leaping on another man, dressed in lime green. The man in the vest raises his hand in two rapid, staccato flashes, stabbing the man in the green twice. He stabs him three more times that the camera doesn’t capture.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The man in the green suit was Meredith Hunter, a black man from Berkeley at a racetrack in nearby Altamont to see a free Rolling Stones concert. He had a gun when he was stabbed by the man in the vest. The killer was Alan Passaro, one of the Hells Angels hired by the Stones to secure the concert.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a horrible moment, and the film circles back to it. Placing Mick Jagger in an editing bay with David Maysles, watching the moment in super-slow motion, pointing out the outline of Hunter’s gun, visible against his girlfriend Patty Bredahoft’s white dress. Jagger says he couldn’t tell what was going on. “It’s so horrible,” he comments after watching the footage, his face blank and drained of its usual insinuations.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That moment, which comes near the end of the film, colors the 90 minutes. Earlier, when you witness the disorder that led up to the concert, it’s setting the scene. When you see blood on the fingers of a Hell’s Angel, it’s a bad sign. When the Stones begin “Under My Thumb”--a fantasy of total control--evil things are portended.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At least, that’s how I make sense of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I’ve seen the movie before and have read more about Altamont than is probably healthy. What Zwerin and the Maysles brothers have constructed is a film that’s both deeply self-conscious and fully open to interpretation. It’s a testament to the film--don’t think I’m spoiling much when I say this is the best film that we will be writing about--that after four decades of analysis, it’s still an open book.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everything is presented without context. The filmmakers provide no narration, or title cards. Important figures pass through </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> unidentified. If you do not know what Jerry Garcia looks like, you will not understand that it’s him saying “oh, that’s what the story is here? Oh bummer.” Since no one on screen mentions it, don’t expect to learn that the Grateful Dead decided not to play after hearing of turmoil onstage. Or that the Dead recommended the Hell’s Angels in the first place.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The openness makes the ethics of the situation difficult to grapple with. Could anyone have stepped in and brought order to the concert? Whose fault is it that Altamont turned so sour in the first place? Can you blame a band for the death of an audience member?
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If my focus seems removed from the Stones and their performances, that’s because the film encourages that. Not that you don’t see the Stones play--there’s a decent amount of concert footage from Madison Square Garden, as well as the Altamont show. Some of it’s quite good, although I wonder what you make of the decision to intersperse these context-less performances throughout </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. And of course you hear Jagger talk a bit, and get a good stare at the silent faces of Richards and Watts now and again. In some yet rarer screentime, you even see the Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman smiling sweetly.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the filmmakers don’t seem particularly interested in the Stones as a unit, or as people. Maybe this is why, in his book </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Stanley Booth paints the Maysles brothers as clueless, running around without comprehending the Stones or their milieu. Which, really, you don’t have to when filming a documentary that offers up its subjects without identification or comment.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s what allows this movie to succeed. It’s not a shallow portrait. It’s not a record of a mediocre show. It’s not a band-sponsored project. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> works because it avoids the trappings that Stones movies typically fall into.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the same time, there’s considerable craft on display here. I thought the film did an exceptional job capturing the spirit of the Altamont crowds and campgrounds. As Jagger howls “Sympathy for the Devil” at Altamont--there’s that song again--we’re finally seeing a crowd as dark and as on edge as a Rolling Stones song. At several points, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> wanders around Altamont, capturing freaks kissing, freaks passing out roses, freaks raising money for the Panthers, and freaks selling acid. Freaks streaming down a road too small to handle them all, over the dull brown hills of December in Northern California, to a racetrack where a man would be killed.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even though it’s opaque, Altamont has a sense of place, and a clear chronology in the film. Much of the rest of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--even great moments like the trip to Muscle Shoals--lacks grounding, and seems to be floating around in relation to this one event.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So much to discuss with this film. What do you make of the Maysles and Zwerin, and their Direct Cinema? Can they be forgiven for cutting off Tina Turner’s epic “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”? How did the Stones sound? And, finally, who’s at fault for the death of Meredith Hunter?
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It was wrong that the Maysles brothers cut off Tina Turner when they did. Her vocal performance, and the manner in which she grips and fondles her microphone (which can only be described as “suggestive”) is an unexpected highlight of the film. Also, the filmmakers’ decision to focus only on her face means about two seconds total footage of Ike Turner.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I agree that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is perhaps </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> classic live document of the Stones, and likely the darkest (though maybe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> wins in that category). I’ve seen the movie many times, but with this viewing, I tried to focus on the visual contributions of the filmmakers.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I came to the conclusion that the Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin deserve the majority of the credit for presenting this event so effectively and completely. Though Stanley Booth may have portrayed them as naive in his book, it is this sense of remove from its subject matter that makes </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">among the least obsequious and flattering to its subjects of any concert documentary. Earlier, I remember you said, “all concert films are exercise in vanity.” This film might be a rare exception--a concert film that traffics in the basic humanity of everyone involved, the Stones included.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In documentaries such as </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Grey Gardens </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Salesman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the Maysles brothers pioneered what we now call direct cinema, a style that used the recent invention of lightweight, portable cameras to attempt to capture an incident from every available angle. The style has its roots in cinema verite, where the act of recording the event becomes part of the story itself (the Heisenberg principle in artistic form). An early example of this is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nanook of the North</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, where director Robert Flaherty had his subject smile and acknowledge the camera as he went about his day.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Maysles contributed to the direct cinema movement in many ways, but one of their prime innovations was their focus on subjects whose behavior becomes warped as they are being filmed. In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, they flip that idea on its head somewhat. Scenes from Altamont are interspersed with Stones concert footage from Madison Square Garden. The linear part of the film show the Stones in the editing bay, where they watch the scenes unfold in the same order we do. This puts the viewer in the interesting position of reacting to the Stones as they react to themselves on screen.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Early on in the film, David Maysles explains to Charlie Watts, “This gives us the freedom, for all you guys watching this, we may only be on you for a minute. Then go to almost anything.” It’s a hint to the film’s positioning of Stones as performers-cum-spectators. As we watch the Stones smile, grimace, and react to film footage and audio recordings, we are being deluged with post-Altamont speculation and anxiety as if we are there on the scene, slowly learning what is happening. By the end, we know so much about why and how Altamont went wrong, without ever being directly told anything via an interceding narrator or title card. This makes for a rare concert documentary that seems to convey its subject from infinite angles.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, the film’s immersive effect might have been mitigated had the Stones footage not been good. Luckily, it is great. When I first saw the film many years ago, I thought these scenes were darkly lit and difficult to see, compared to paragons of the genre like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Woodstock</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Last Waltz</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Song Remains the Same</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. As we have progressed through so many previous Stones films, however, I have learned to see the beauty of this approach.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Stones footage is dark and grainy, and the band behind Jagger is terminally underlit--we only see Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman in brief glimpses, with Richards and Watts only slightly more visible. But their performances are a litany of classic standards. The opening performance of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” is perhaps my favorite version of the song. Richards’ guitar has never been thicker, the riff never more loose and rolling. Tellingly, this version of the song is the only from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to appear on corresponding concert album </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (you see the band taking photos for that album’s cover early on).
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The only filmmaking choice I disapprove of is the series of slow motion dissolves in “Love in Vain.” Other than that, the film’s sound editing really crackles. The band’s “Sympathy for the Devil” is more similar to the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock & Roll Circus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">version, a saga moreso of twisting guitars than Latin polyrhythms. The version of “Under My Thumb” carries you along, even as you are aware of the subtle violence underneath. And it’s great to see them perform a few new songs, like “Street Fighting Man” and “Honky Tonk Women.” Charlie is amazingly tight throughout, and he looks good, too. Mick Taylor and Keith--what else can I say about their perfect guitar fusion? I think I’ve reached the limits of acceptable superlative adjectives. It seems every kink the band had struggled with during the Hyde Park concert had been ironed out to perfection. From what I can tell, not even Bill makes a mistake.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You asked if we can determine who finally is at fault for the death of Meredith Hunter. As the film (and at one point, Grace Slick) makes clear, there is plenty of fault to apportion to nearly all the parties involved with the show, the band included. The film includes many scenes of attorney Melvin Belli negotiating behind the scenes to find a location for a free Stones concert in San Francisco. I have wondered in the past why Belli allowed these scenes to be filmed, as they do not seem to put him or most other parties involved in a good light. The scenes show him bullying, cajoling, having tense arguments, and bragging about the money he will receive from the event. With the amount of time he is featured in the film, you might think he is meant to be positioned as a (perhaps the) villain.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, seeing this film now has changed my mind about Belli. If I had to accord blame to the single party, I think it would have to be to the owners of the Altamont speedway, who agreed to have a concert despite not having the space, resources, and time to do it right. The film makes this fact (and the fact they are doing this to generate publicity) clear on many occasions. One scene in Belli’s office shows the Altamont team discussing the amount of parking space, which they calculate to be around 12,000 vehicles. But, someone points out, there are something like 80,000 cars on the road, all heading to the concert. Their answer basically amounts to “maybe we can find some more parking in time.” They don’t.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But there were so many other problems with Altamont as well. There was a lot of bad acid going around San Francisco that winter in 1969. A lot of stupid people, too. The combination of acid-fried, mentally damaged freaks and violent, prone-to-anger Hells Angel was doomed to be tragic. Blame could be laid endlessly, should I choose to lay it.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But before we go, I’d like to ask you if there are ways in which this film shows a hopeful or positive side to the concert. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gets a rap as a film that shows the dark undercurrent of the hippie dream, a film that corresponds with the Manson murders and stuff like that. But if you look carefully, there are scenes in which the film unapologetically show the audience’s joy and wonder. For instance, I noticed a number of shots showing the Angels really digging the hell out of the Stones music (despite Sonny Barger’s protestations), as well as other scenes showing the Angels throwing confetti in the crowd. Are there any moments in the film that seem like something more out of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Woodstock</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: You’re right: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> makes it difficult to point the finger. And that helps make it the complicated document that it is. Despite all the concert footage, I don’t really see the film as a concert movie, per se. It’s not an exercise in vanity, as you say, and I think that’s why.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I didn’t dwell on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s lighter moments in my first post. That’s because the film’s scenes orbit around the death that we see, and then see again, towards the end. But it’s not so simplistic as to be all doom and gloom. I had trouble finding hopeful moments in the material that’s directly connected or at Altamont. But I think that’s just me, it’s definitely there, out there in the crowd. The shots of fans walking away in the blinding sun are gorgeous.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are lovely moments all over the film. I loved the cover shoot for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Charlie’s on an empty highway with a dusting of snow in its median. It’s a nice counterpoint to the claim--heard moments before in Madison Square Garden--that the Stones are the greatest rock and roll band in the world. And it shares the absurdity of being in a rock band: here’s a grown man riding a mule, for a photo shoot.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A little later, when we first see the Stones in the editing bay, Charlie lets slip one of the sweetest smiles I’ve ever seen. Sweeter even than the Wyman and Taylor ones I mentioned above.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I could watch an entire movie of the Stones at Muscle Shoals. There’s a wonderful scene where they’re listening back to a take of “Wild Horses,” almost two years before the world would hear the song. Jagger’s listening, throwing back J&B. Keith’s on the ground, whispering along to one of the all-time great rock ballads in his snakeskin boots. Charlie’s just asleep. Later, when he gazes directly into the camera, I realized: Charlie, we need </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">your</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> memoir. Please.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the accumulation of such details, most of them not so sweet, that makes </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It succeeds on its specificity. I’m glad that we were able to make it through round one without mentioning ‘the death of the sixties.’ To my mind, that’s a meaning that’s been imposed on Altamont, not something inherent in the event itself. The movie is too richly detailed to support a reading like that.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Put another way: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and Altamont make nice examples for someone invoking the death of an era, but looking at the concert through that lens isn’t revealing. The culture was shifting, but Altamont was an outlier in that shift, not some sort of new normal.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OK, let me (finally) get to the music. First off, and I’m sure you agree, Tina Turner’s vocal performance stands on its own merits. The mic-stroking is attention grabbing, sure, but take a closer look: Turner is literally crying. She’s at the helm of a slow, epic take that the horns rips wide open. Incredible, and impossible to follow.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The other supporting acts don’t get close. The Flying Burrito Brothers sucked. And the Jefferson Airplane, while they’re actually playing, are pleasant enough. But it’s an aimless pleasantness, and the vocals are pretty damn rough.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Stones, on the other hand...have gotten quite a bit better since </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I didn’t care for the Hyde Park “Love In Vain,” but the one they do here slays that version. They translate the loneliness into an arena-ready vastness. Go big, get lonely.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The 1969 “Satisfaction” is a mighty, riotous beast, something between the original and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fun House</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Amidst the sharp edges of Taylor and Richards’ guitar work, there’s a new section where Mick crows about getting satisfaction in the morning. “I believe I’m gonna get it,” his boast goes, and it sounds like a response to Muscle Shoals Hall of Famer Aretha Franklin.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throughout, this is a confident, more assured band than we saw in films from 1968 and earlier in 1969. I’d say the MSG material sounds better than the stuff at Altamont, where they were outdoors, weren’t in control of the situation, and Mick was dressed as Harley Quinn. But in these concerts, you get intimations of where the Stones are headed. Mick Taylor is the wildcard, turning “Jumping Jack Flash” into a proto-“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and smearing electricity over the stomp and snarl of “Sympathy.” Good things were clearly in store.
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally and tangentially, it’s always seemed to me like Satan disappeared from Stones songs for a few years after Altamont. In the previous three years, they had recorded </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your Satanic Majesties Request</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “Sympathy for the Devil,” and the Satan-invoking “Monkey Man.” But between 1970 and 1972, this part of their mythology (unsurprisingly stolen from the blues), disappears. And when it does resurface in “Dancing With Mr. D,” it seems more cartoonish than before.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It sounds conspiratorial, but do you think the Stones wanted to downplay the devil stuff after being associated with something worse than drug charges? Or am I not studying my </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sticky Fingers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> liner notes closely enough?
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> It’s a measure of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s ability to resist the easy answers of the common concert movie narrative that the questions you asked have been so challenging to answer. I had never thought much about why the Stones relinquished talking about the devil until the silly “Dancing With Mr. D” on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goats Head Soup</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. However, I did notice during the film’s Altamont scenes a sense that Mick is gradually realizing the danger of having so powerful a public stage. You can see this earlier as he asks the crowd, helplessly, “Who’s fighting, and what for?”
</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Later, during “Sympathy,” it is not Mick’s performance, but rather the audience’s response, that the Maysles (and a group of cameramen including George Lucas) focus on. People run on stage and try to grab Mick. Fights keep breaking up in the crowd. Mick has to tell the crowd to quiet down several times. There’s something about “Sympathy”--call it a subsection of the audience’s callous, ironic identification with a figure of absolute evil--that makes the audience hungry for spectacle and violence, beyond even what Mick and his band can deliver.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It has been demonstrated very often in previous documentaries that Mick wields an incredible amount of power onstage, and this is something he is sometimes visibly uncomfortable with. Occasionally, you see him using this power for good, like telling the audience at Hyde Park to keep their mess minimal and behave. But here his paeans to non-violence do no good. The audience is not there to venerate Jagger, but to celebrate a type of behavior that is inflated in a fraction of the Stones’ music, the aforementioned “Sympathy,” “Monkey Man,” and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their Satanic Majesties Request</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (which, despite its title, does not have a sound I would call “satanic” for the most part).
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wonder why the Meredith Hunter altercation happened specifically during “Under My Thumb.” Not in the sense of what it meant symbolically for the song--I’m sure that was not a concern of Hunter or his attacker at that time. What I mean is if the Stones’ music leading up to that moment had a part to play in Hunter drawing his knife, or if it was just incidental to an inevitable confrontation. I would be more inclined to guess it was the latter. The Stones provided an excuse, but a concert this big and slapdash with so many acidheads and freaks mixed with the Angels might have been explosive regardless, even for the Grateful Dead or QMS or someone else.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Glad you mentioned the final shot of the film, with the dazed kids walking away from the concert. Of the films we have watched so far, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has the best ending. The live version of “Gimme Shelter” played over this scene is so massive, you can get a sense of why the violence in these songs is so seductive (and hard-rocking). You can also see, specifically in this scene, why Martin Scorsese features the song so often.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As you said, this film and this moment aren’t meant to be symbolic of anything like “the death of the 60s.” That is a characteristic of the film that has been imposed by critics and viewers after the fact, not something the filmmakers intended. To suggest that the Maysles were intending to sum the historical importance of this event as an “end of an era” is ridiculous. The film is simply an exploration of an event, what went wrong, and why it might have been destined to go wrong, shown from a variety of perspectives.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My favorite moment of the entire film is another one that you mention, where the Stones sit in the studio listening to “Wild Horses.” The moment specifically is when Charlie’s eyes move upward and stare directly at the camera. I have often thought of this moment during idle passages in my life. What was Charlie thinking at that exact time? Is there a reason he looked at the camera at that moment? Was it simply curiosity, or a feeling in the music? Was he thinking of the effect it might have on the viewer?
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Films have often made dramatic use of that moment where the actor’s eyes turn to directly to face the camera, an effect that actors try to avoid 99% of the time. You can see why. When someone stares directly back at you, the voyeur, it is scary and shocking. The film becomes a little bit about you, watching it. I’m sure the Stones had a similar dreadful feeling of being watched after the fact as they sat in the editing bay, trying and failing to parse the reasons behind Altamont.</span></div>
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Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-86199693284446988072014-06-02T08:30:00.000-05:002014-06-02T09:17:13.543-05:00Stones on Film Week Four: Stones in the Park (1969)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/4/3/1364993626731/Rolling-Stones-frontman-M-008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/4/3/1364993626731/Rolling-Stones-frontman-M-008.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Available on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stones-The-Park/dp/B000BSN9YU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401659985&sr=8-1&keywords=stones+in+the+park">DVD</a></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-weight: normal;">You are reading Stones on Film, a 13-part dialogue covering notable Rolling Stones documentary and concert films through a critical lens. Today is week four. Archive <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/search/label/Stones%20on%20Film" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;">here</a>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had a chance to walk through Hyde Park a number of times while staying with my father in London a couple years ago. Our hotel was by the north entrance near the Lancaster Gate tube stop, so I was able to spend several afternoons walking along the Serpentine, visiting the memorials, and imagining what it would have been like to be at the Rolling Stones’ famous 1969 festival.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-b31260c0-5972-f898-6bd7-c45f9cdf1083" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The event recorded in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in the Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is one of the most famous concerts, and arguably one of the most famous pop culture moments, in British history. Certainly it is one of very few pop concerts that a rock layman might be aware of. It has been referenced in pop culture often since--for instance, in an issue of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Alan Moore portrayed a fictional version of the Hyde Park events with Mick Jagger’s character from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Performance</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Turner, presiding in place of Mick. The Stones set the standard for the legendary rock concerts that Hyde Park would become famous for. The event was also notable for being massive and free. As the film shows, there are definite disadvantages to throwing free shows in huge parks (to say nothing of adverse effects on the environment). Tellingly, the Stones charged customers a great deal for</span><a href="http://www.bst-hydepark.com/events/detail/the-rolling-stones-13th" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> an anniversary show last year</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The film </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in the Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> finds the band at a dispiriting crossroads, performing for the first time in months with a new guitarist, the Bluesbreakers’ Mick Taylor, only two days after Brian Jones drowned to death. Taylor had been hired before Jones passed, but was suddenly thrust into the position as the permanent replacement of a dead Stone. He looks shy and uncomfortable here, but his guitar-playing is anything but.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is a known truism among hardcore Stones fans that Mick Taylor was the best musician to ever play with the group. The funny thing about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in the Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is how immediately this becomes apparent--Taylor, even in glimpses, is a musician and talent unlike anything in the Stones at the time. His addition and Jones’ subtraction from the band changed so much about the group’s sound. Whereas Jones’ guitar was barely audible in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock and Roll Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy for the Devil</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Taylor’s crystalline leads are not only present, but equal in the mix with Keith Richards’ meaty rhythms. It is a bit sad that at this supposed memorial of Brian Jones, his replacement so quickly proved to be an improvement over his predecessor. Even in the one area of guitar-playing where Jones showed promise--slide guitar--Taylor outplays him with a quick-fingered grace and mournful beauty that is equalled by very few, the difference between a virtuoso and a mere player.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taylor’s addition to the group propelled its sound several degrees forward, but it wasn’t the only new element. The Hyde Park concert was also the first public opportunity for Keith Richards to test out his new open tuning style, which he picked up from Ry Cooder. That switch from standard tuning to open-G permanently warped Keith’s playing, Keith and Mick’s songwriting, and the band’s performance style. With this new tuning, Keith could throw away the standard barre chords and lead lines and hang back behind Charlie’s drums and play chunky rhythms and mangled three-string clusters (“Five strings, three fingers and one asshole” he famously said).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s hard to describe why, but these new developments increased the sophistication of the sound by several factors. Consider the differences between the version of “Satisfaction” in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is my Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the version here. In the earlier version, the main riff is a low, reedy, two note thing. Here, the riff is exploded outward. Keith plays higher on the fretboard, bending entire chords rather than single note lines. The result is a pure choppy rhythmic momentum completely undivested from the traditional rock lead guitar trap he seemed to be falling into (see: his passive noodlings in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy for the Devil</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The unfortunate thing about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in the Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, however, is that the pieces are all there for potential greatness, but the band was either too fazed by Brian’s death or completely unprepared to play live after many months apart. Simply put, they blew it. It is astonishing how often at Hyde Park that the Stones fuck up their set. The band basically loses the road map for several measures in “I’m Yours, She’s Mine,” and Bill Wyman audibly fucks up several times during “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (c’mon Bill--you wrote the riff!). The band is simply not together here, in a way that is much more apparent even than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock and Roll Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even more odd is how disengaged Mick Jagger seems, onstage and off. To again compare this to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie Is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">--remember the interviews where Mick talked about how “pop music is an ephemeral thing”? He was a bit pompous and his wisdom was conventional, but he was at least being earnest and thoughtful. In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in the Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Mick spends his interview sections either complaining about the expenses of being a rock star, or grousing about and insulting the intelligence of his audience.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be fair, he has a point about this audience--</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in the Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> also features Hell’s Angels as security, driving trucks through lines of people and dragging people offstage like some sort of pre-punk rally. One of the odder preoccupations of directors Leslie Woodhead and Jo Durden-Smith is a focus on the most annoying, unpleasant elements of the audience. They provide interview clips from obnoxious socialists, meathead macho rockers who disparage the Beatles, eccentric Britishers, and people just trying to bring back the swastika (hey, it used to be a symbol of love!). This makes parts of the film seem like a prequel to the tenor of barbarism and death that many associate with the Altamont concert and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve talked a lot about how the performances are disappointing, but even the Stones at their messiest and most unfocused will yield some good moments, and this is the beginning of their greatest period. The same cannot be said for the filmmaking here--</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in the Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is truly badly filmed and badly edited. For some reason, Woodhead and Durden-Smith love fast zooms that go in and out, almost as much as they like quick cuts, leading to visual whiplash that is annoying and distracting. They do a terrible job focusing on the band. Even Keith is barely visible on stage most of the time. Woodhead and Durden-Smith clearly are trying to keep the cutting and pacing fast to match the energy of the music, but the ultimate effect is so amateurish, I found myself bored and even a bit nauseated by the number of quick zooms at the backs of people’s heads. There were a number of concert films from this era that employed this nauseating zoom-and-cut style, such as </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tAE2K3YT_A" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cream’s farewell concert</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What did you think of the tribute to Brian? I had heard so much about the poem, Mick’s dress, and the butterflies, but there is little here that actually celebrates Brian or his legacy. Some Brian fans have maintained that the choice of “I’m Yours, She’s Mine” was Keith’s slap in the face to the deceased Stone whose girlfriend he had stolen. I don’t know about that, but I almost couldn’t believe myself listening to Mick’s reading of Shelley’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Adonais</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which was all about how much harder it is for the living to continue on, and the dead have it lucky (there’s a reason Mick loved his romantic poets so much). Were the Stones even processing that Brian was dead at this point? Who among them, do you think, was even capable of caring?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> When your band’s founding member dies two days before you play an enormous, free concert in your hometown, you have a few options: pay tribute, cancel your show, or ignore it entirely. Unfortunately, the Stones make paying tribute seem like the worst option of the three. How convenient that Brian was simply “awakened from the dreams of life,” as Shelley put it. Seriously, how callous does Jagger have to be to say “I don’t believe in Western bereavement” two days after Jones’ death?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The band’s (which is to say Jagger’s) response to Brian’s death is incomprehensible, and uncomprehending. Jagger is far more lucid when discussing the profitability of early Rolling Stones concert--the cold business logic comes to him far more naturally than empathy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then again, nobody ever said this band was great because the people in it were humanitarians.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Much to discuss here, especially given the brief runtime. I enjoy the Stones’ performance more than you do, I think, to me it’s a clear cut above </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock and Roll Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You analyze why the addition of Taylor and the transformation in Richards’ riffing altered the band dynamic, and do it far better than I could, so let me just second what you say.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But there’s several jaw-dropping moments here, mostly courtesy of the newest Stone (now vying with Wyman for title of “most stone-faced Stone”). His dirty slide is a revelation throughout. I think it’s important to recall that here, as it was 6 months ago with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock and Roll Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the Stones are not a touring band. So, sure, they’re a bit sloppy. But I enjoy almost everything they do. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whatever Keef’s motivations, it’s lovely to hear the band roar to life with “I’m Yours & I’m Hers.” The slow churn of “I’m Free” sounds like a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sticky Fingers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> cut. There’s a boisterous, barbed “Satisfaction.” And a scrappy “Honky Tonky Women” is rough, and kind of drags its feet, but in a way that anticipates </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Exile</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (the muddled mix here does no one any favors, especially Wyman’s bass).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While this version of “Sympathy” has a bit of fat there are some astounding moments. The way Richard’s Flying V rises up from that unholy drum circle! The way that Taylor’s terse rhythm guitar flies around in circles with those same drums! And the way that the film’s editing actually serves the song! It’s great stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I choose “Love In Vain” as the show’s weakest moment. It’s a song almost too lonely to expose to a crowd of hundreds of thousands--Robert Johnson didn’t conjure his songs for that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me get to the villains of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In The Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Leslie Woodhead and Jo Durden-Smith, the directors. The movie is a confused mess, inelegantly blending together elements of the concert film, cinema verite, and stodgy BBC documentaries. The directors never fit together their puzzle pieces, they just kind of leave them all on the board and dress them up with weird editing decisions (like those whiplash-inducing zooms).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The movie starts with a montage of sleeping faces, goes to the Stones halfway through “Midnight Rambler,” shifts to a dry voiceover providing background information on the concert, shows a seated Jagger musing on crowd psychology, then provides a montage of freakish looking Angels striving to redeem the Swastika. That’s all in the first seven minutes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a film that cannot decide what it wants to be. Is it a documentary that takes us through this day at Hyde Park? Or a tour diary, following the Stones around? Perhaps an avant-garde concert film? Durden-Smith and Woodhead have no clue.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had some harsh things to say about Godard’s direction, but this movie had me pining for the clarity of his artistic choices. Ah, to watch a film about the Stones that is coherently structured, thoughtfully shot and well-edited (The problems with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> mostly revolved around its content). Durden-Smith and Woodhead evince no such thoughtfulness, and appear to be some of the least probing interviewers to have ever sat down with Mick Jagger. The film only gains momentum when they allow the Stones to play, unencumbered by trips to King’s Road or the inside of Jagger’s car.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll wrap up with a more general Stones question: just how central is “Sympathy for the Devil” to the band’s legacy and image? The last three Stones films we’ve watched all feature “Sympathy” as their musical showpiece. The band exults in letting loose its percussive onslaught and gleeful darkness. They seem to see it as the crown jewel in their catalog.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is that because it really is? Or is it a simply a quirk of these three movies all being filmed as “Sympathy” was being recorded and promoted (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let It Bleed </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">was not yet out when </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In The Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was released)? I love “Sympathy,” but there’s a half-dozen songs from this period that are at least as good, to my mind. From a historical standpoint, “Jumping Jack Flash,” which saw them casting off the psychedelic frills, was more significant. Why this song, again and again?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: There’s actually one bit in the film that shows Mick’s basic humanity, a scene in a car with Marianne Faithfull and her son Nicholas. Mick and the boy have a conversation about “waving to Charlie” and whether or not the drummer will wave back. Mick for once is generous and friendly, and the moment seems real and unrehearsed. However, this also demonstrates another trend I have noticed in Stones docs, the reduction of Faithfull to the status of non-entity. It’s worth thinking about how much she was vilified in the British tabloids for being both a mother and involved with Mick. Male rock stars like Jagger and Richards were rarely savaged in the press for being drug addicts or neglecting their children, but a different standard was applied to females like Faithfull. This is all tangential to the movie we are watching, but worth remembering when seeing how she interacts with Mick and her young son.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why is “Sympathy” such a popular live choice, you ask? You mention “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” as a more significant and perhaps recognizable song in the Stones canon. Why don’t they play that song as often? For that matter, why have we not yet heard a single live version of “Street Fighting Man,” another song that is musically and socially significant? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My guess is that it has something to do with “Sympathy”’s musical and lyrical flexibility. Think about it: the song’s relatively simple three-chord structure and extended jam sections are tailor-made for a variety of different interpretations, especially with regard to the rhythm (although the version played here with percussionists is more similar to the studio version than most). On top of that, the lyrics of “Sympathy” are vaguely dark and foreboding, but not explicitly about anything current, making them perfect for summoning societal or generational angst without dating themselves (note when he says “I shouted out who killed all the Kennedys”--he is talking persistent historical trends, not any one event). The mantle of “dark, foreboding Stones song that represents the sins of hippie culture” largely went to “Gimme Shelter” after this, largely because of the movie, but it’s still easy to see why the Stones would bring out “Sympathy for the Devil” as their set piece. It grooves, it terrifies, and it moves the listener along through a compelling narrative that can be universally understood in almost any culture.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We certainly do differ regarding the general level of quality of the Stones’ performance, which I see as riddled with mistakes. Part of that could be the low quality of the recording here. Certainly there are many good musical moments, many of which you describe, and my favorite overall is probably the opening performance of “Midnight Rambler.” Simply the part where Taylor and Richards are playing together, bouncing the song’s main riff back and forth, as footage plays of people entering the park. The synergy between their two guitar styles is extraordinary--there really is nothing like it--and it definitely shows the band was on to a special sound. And the extended performance of “Sympathy” is also fun. However, other songs are badly out of tune, and the band at times seems genuinely confused at what is happening within a song. Even normally superwound Charlie seems to make mistakes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Glad to see we agree about Durden-Smith and Woodhead, two BBC documentarians who between them have a number of rock films to their credit. Why, then, is this one so amateurish? Even at an hour, the film seems long, full of extended boring moments that drag forever, many involving Jagger or members of the audience.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One thing that Durden-Smith and Woodhead might have done to improve the film (other than hire another editor) is intersperse footage from some of the openers. The Stones were clearly leery of shining a spotlight on opening acts after being bested by the Who, meaning we never see or hear a mention of groups like King Crimson, Roy Harper, and Alexis Corner’s New Church. Crimson supposedly put on a legendary show at Hyde Park, and three of their live performances became instrumentals for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the Court of the Crimson King</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Imagine if there had been footage of Jagger with Robert Fripp and co., introducing throngs of a fans to “a new band that is gonna go a long way”--It would have been interesting historically, at least.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before we leave Hyde Park behind, what did you think of last year’s 44th anniversary (?) Stones Hyde Park shows, with Mick Taylor in tow? Did the addition of Taylor on “Midnight Rambler” at recent Stones gigs make you any more interested in seeing 2013 Stones live? I have to admit I’m interested in seeing Taylor play, but promise I draw the line at hologram Brian Jones, or cardboard cutout Ian Stewart, or Bill Wyman’s son Wolfgang on bass, or, or...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I agree--cut the interviews with dazed hippies and politically confused Angels, and give us more “Midnight Rambler.” One of the most villainous songs the Stones ever did, and starting the film with its slow crawl seems like a smart directorial move. But even there the filmmakers fuck up--Keith has called it a “blues opera,” but Durden-Smith and Woodhead chop off the first few acts. For shame! (I can’t write about this performance without linking to </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EN2cWWUHa5g" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the astounding version </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that they’d perform later in 1969, captured on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for bringing up the scene in the car with Mick, Marianne and Nicolas. There was a lot of shit going on for all three of them outside that car, but they manage to share one sweet moment while they ride to the hotel. Little Nicolas isn’t Jagger’s son, but you can see him bring out a fatherly impulse in Jagger. He melts Jagger’s often-remarked-upon </span><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-rolling-stones-soul-survivors-20130507" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">coldness</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a bit, and I love the detail that Charlie is his favorite Stone. Good taste!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for the Stones concert at Hyde Park again in 2013...it was hard to care, wasn’t it? I didn’t check, but I don’t imagine the front pages of the (remnants of the) British music press read “Stones Reassert Artistic Credibility at Stunning, 4-Hour Hyde Park Show.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Almost no one seems excited by the Stones’ current tour, and that includes the guys in the band. Charlie Watts </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/apr/04/charlies-watts-rolling-stones-drummer-interview" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hates playing outdoors</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Mick Taylor has moaned about the briefness of his cameos, and Jagger publically questioned Richards’ and Taylor’s fitness to perform. (Jagger also </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2339943/Mick-Jagger-Rolling-Stones-frontman-makes-frank-admissions-interview.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">revealed to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Q</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that he shares </span><a href="https://screen.yahoo.com/history-punk-000000227.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ian Rubbish’s </span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">political views.) </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/may/04/rolling-stones-face-pay-cut-ticket-prices-slashed?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sales for the tour have been soft</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Rolling Stones are probably my favorite band, and yet I didn’t even consider going to see them when they passed through Oakland last May. Instead, I saw Yo La Tengo that week, a band whose work ethic and modesty are the polar opposite of what the Stones represent (though they do a decent </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1f2cyTgtNE" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Let’s Spend The Night Together”</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A lot has changed for the Stones since 1969, when 250,000 people went to see them flub a few notes and tear into some classics, free of charge. In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones In The Park</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Jagger says “it never occurred to me why people should really pay. You know you don’t make any money.” By 2013, he’d changed his mind--it cost more than $200 to witness the Stones retake the stage at Hyde Park.</span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-68416930747148704862014-05-26T08:30:00.000-05:002014-10-18T11:40:09.577-05:00Stones on Film Week Three: The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1996)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://beatlescollege.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/john-lennon-and-mick-jagger-rock-and-roll-cirucus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://beatlescollege.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/john-lennon-and-mick-jagger-rock-and-roll-cirucus.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Directed by: Michael Lindsay-Hogg</b></div>
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<b>Available <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Rolling-Stones-Rock-Circus/dp/B000621484/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400943180&sr=8-1&keywords=rock+and+roll+circus">on DVD</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stones-Rock-Roll-Circus/dp/B00H8A5RBW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1400943180&sr=8-3&keywords=rock+and+roll+circus">for rent</a></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>AM:</b></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Imagine: you throw a party to celebrate yourself, record it, and then hide that recording for thirty years because you were upstaged by a guest.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-b31260c0-2eb9-dfc7-3a6f-fd473fb9318f" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s essentially what the Rolling Stones did with their </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock And Roll Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which features performances by Jethro Tull, Taj Mahal, and a supergroup fronted by John Lennon. But it’s The Who, tearing through “A Quick One While He’s Away,” who steal the Stones’ thunder.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All concert films are exercises in vanity, but this one is up there. The Stones suppressed it for nearly three decades, by which time The Who were firmly below them in the Classic Rock Power Rankings. But wait--why were the Stones throwing a circus in late 1968 at all?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was the period between </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beggar’s Banquet </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let It Bleed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and came during a long hiatus in the band’s touring schedule. It’d been 20 months since the Stones last played a show, then the longest gap in the band’s history. The Circus was a way to reach fans without putting out a record or hitting the road.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So gather your rock friends to play together and see what happens--that’s the M.O. And set it in a circus. That is actually a TV soundstage. Then dress the audience in weird, multicolored robes that make them look like cult members.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As you can probably tell, I’m puzzled by the circus theme. It seems much more in tune with the band’s public image in 1967, when they released psychedelic gem </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their Satantic Majesties Request</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (wish Godard had been in the studio for “Citadel”). On that album, Jagger adopts the stagey presence of a circus ringleader, and to quite nice effect. But by 1968, after “Jumping Jack Flash” and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beggar’s Banquet</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the Stones had returned to their roots--ripping off American genres, mostly blues and country. Rock as a whole had decisively turned away from the excesses of psychedelia. And yet here we are in a circus tent, and it’s almost 1969.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s not a lot of circus acts in this particular tent, although the fire-eater ranks among the movie’s best performances.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first two acts offer a treatise in how and how not to play music on TV. Jethro Tull kick things off, not especially well, miming along to a prerecorded “Song For Jeffrey.” The band--here featuring a pre-Black Sabbath Tony Iommi--look like vagrants, none more so than frontman Ian Anderson. Did you find his mannerisms as disturbing as I did? He hams it up, and there’s tons of frantically-edited close-ups of various parts of his body.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Who take the stage next, looking insanely young. They immediately smash their way into “A Quick One While He’s Away,” 1966’s shapeshifting epic. Townshend sinks his teeth into the riff, Daltrey wails powerfully, and Keith Moon slams out drum fills for the ages (Moon’s manic style offers an interesting counterpoint to Watt’s straightlaced, straightfaced drumming).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The band bring an insane level of energy to the song. It works because the performance is top-notch, but also because of the physicality of their playing. Think about it: The Stones have a attention-grabbing frontman and four dudes who mostly stare off into space. Not The Who. Their white-hot performance features windmilling and jump kicks by the guitarist, mic tricks from the frontman, and the drummer throwing his cymbal to the ground.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This might be a stretch, but if this was the 1960 presidential debate, the Who are the energetic JFK, where the Stones are Nixon--unprepared and toughing it out (they reportedly took the stage around 5 AM, several hours after The Who played).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that song! A beautifully written, constantly changing piece of music, besting the studio version by far. My only criticism is of Daltrey’s shirt.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Taj Mahal takes the stage after The Who, in an amazing cowboy get up. He and his band tear through “(Ain’t That) A Lot of Love,” and it’s maybe the second best performance here. That bassline is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nasty</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a gritty and Stax-worthy rock for Taj to rest his cowboy hat on. It’s a great slice of hippie blues--”we’ve got to bring it up together baby,” Taj implores.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Marianne Faithful follows Mahal, and we first see her from above. She’s all by herself, in a lavish purple dress. Singing along to a prerecorded “Something Better,” a psych-y folk number. She just sits there (lots of closeups of her face), so it’s a testament to her performance that it’s actually quite watchable. As Faithful sings her sad song, her languid eyes stare out into the space. I really haven’t found something better, her eyes suggest.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The last non-Stones act is The Dirty Mac, a supergroup fronted by John Lennon, who calls himself Winston Legthigh for reasons unknown (the humor in this movie is bizarre). He and Jagger intro the group, which features Hendrix drummer Mitch Mitchell, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. There’s a wonderfully awkward moment at the end of the exchange, where Lennon hands Mick his dirty dishes, and Mick keeps saying “‘Yer Blues’ John, ‘Yer Blues’ John.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which he and the Mac then play. For all the pedigree in the group, they sound like they just formed. It’s not bad, but the song doesn’t improve on the version you know from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The White Album</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. A pre-</span><a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/12/eric-claptons-evil-speech.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rant</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Clapton takes a longish solo that doesn’t add much to the tune--I found myself wanting to hear a gnarled Lennon solo, or perhaps how George Harrison might navigate the scuzzy waters.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Mac then back Yoko Ono as she shouts out a song called “Whole Lotta Yoko.” You will not be surprised to learn that it’s the movie’s most experimental moment, by far. Yoko would have freaked out the viewing public, if the movie had been released. What was Keith thinking as he played along to Ono’s primal screams, I wonder?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then, halfway, through the film, Lennon introduces the Rolling Stones, who were not yet calling themselves the greatest rock and roll band in the world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve already gone on too long (if this post was a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock and Roll Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> track, it would be “Whole Lotta Yoko”), so I’ll wrap up there. What did you think of the Stones? Am I right to say that Taj Mahal and The Who gave the best performances in the film? And was there any reason to set this thing in a circus?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The Rock and Roll Circus was recorded on December 11, 1968, but didn’t arrive on home video until 1996. I know because my father bought the VHS from Rhino as soon as it was released. Like many Stones fans, he had only heard legends of the concert, including the barn-busting early Who performance “A Quick One” (first shown in the 1978 documentary </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Kids Are Alright</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) and the one and only appearance of the Dirty Mac (marking the first time John Lennon played on television without the Beatles, a significant moment that foreshadows their breakup--it’s possible that the film is of more historical import to Beatles fans than Stones fans). I was 10 years old at the time, and still have vague memories of watching it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Stones may have been upstaged by the Who, but the image I remember most keenly from childhood is Mick Jagger removing his shirt during “Sympathy For the Devil” (that tune again) and revealing demonic tattoos, crouched over the stage, chanting and muttering. I remember it even moreso than the sword swallower and his assistant “lovely Luna,” (to quote cigar-chomping Keith), a very impressive act. Jagger seemed genuinely threatening in this performance, and he made the song scary and memorable. The rest of the band, well...they followed his cue and stayed in the back. It’s as you said: they are “four dudes mostly staring off into space.” But Jagger’s performance, at least, is among his best. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s worth placing this event in a bit of context. The performances began at 2 p.m., with Jagger and co. acting as ringleaders throughout. Filming took much longer than originally planned, to the point where the Stones finally took the stage at 5 a.m. the next day. My impression is that the bleary-eyed audience dressed in robes was not allowed to leave the soundstage, which explains how tired and miserable they seemed during the Stones’ set. Conversely, that somehow enhances the cult-like atmosphere, perhaps part of the reason why “Sympathy for the Devil” seemed so scary to a 10-year old.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I would be happy to elaborate on the Stones song in the film since you did a great job of describing the other acts (we will vehemently disagree later about Jethro Tull). John Lennon introduces the group with some brief pantomime. Cut to: the opening riff of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” played low and almost unexpectedly, causing dazed fans in the audience to stand up and clap their hands. They are witnessing the original five, plus pianist Nicky Hopkins and percussionist Rocky Dijon. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The run through “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” does seem to lack energy, at least at first. Keith bounces and nods his head like he usually does (not a lot of moves, that guy), while Jagger gives the camera filthy looks. But the audience eventually starts getting into, and Jagger responds with a little energetic strut. The energy builds. There are other brief glimpses of musicians in the audience, dancing excitedly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The next song is “Parachute Woman,” from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beggar’s Banquet</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The groove is laid back, but it settles in eventually, just as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” did. Keith’s guitar solo is a pretty much a miss, but Mick redeems him with his harp solo. A more high-energy number here might have been a better choice, had they known they would be on at 5 a.m.--imagine if they had done “Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadows” instead!</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Up next is “No Expectations,” from the same album. The main point of interest here is Brian’s slide guitar, his last notable musical moment on film (and the only time his guitar is audible throughout). If you listen carefully, Nicky Hopkins’ piano is really lovely too. After that is “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” After two low-energy songs, it looks like the audience is starting to nod off again. Jagger responds with free-flowing manic energy. He scats, runs on and offstage, thrusts his pelvis at female audience members. It’s not the greatest performance of the song overall (Keith and Charlie in particular are disappointments), but at least it shows the tune never needed ornate production or gospel choirs to drive home its bittersweet message.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, “Sympathy for the Devil” begins. Mick imitates the single’s opening yelp, as Charlie taps out the song’s primordial beat, helped on percussion by Dijon and Brian Jones on maracas (he at least looks like he’s having fun). I think this is a great performance, second only to “A Quick One,” and the one time that both Mick and the band both seem to be cracking at the same time. The song builds and so do Mick’s animated movements, leading to the aforementioned moment where he kneels shirtless, as if in prayer, possessed by an unholy spirit. The song ends with Mick putting a scarf over his head.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sympathy” is the film’s main climax, but there is a denouement--Mick and Keith, both barely conscious, appear again clad in robes with the other bands and audience members, and Keith sings the first chorus of “Salt of the Earth.” In her review of the film, the New York Times’ Janet Maslin took issue with “the smugness and condescension that accompany this song about little people living in the real world.” Do you think that’s a fair characterization of “Salt of the Earth”? </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Though not among the Stones’ best, I can still appreciate the song’s rustic and simple approach, even if the Stones’ world was as removed from “the hard-working people” as was possible (it wasn’t like they were trying to claim otherwise). But to be honest, it’s not much of a climax. The song is an overdub, and everyone is beyond tired. The film ends with Pete Townshend and Keith Moon and some other musicians weakly attempting a squaredance.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’d love to answer some of your other questions and talk about the opening performances, but like you, I’ve already written too much. We’ll get to that (and Tull) next time. In the meantime, I just realized we’ve written thousands of words about the film without once mentioning the director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg. Lindsay-Hogg (incidentally the biological son of Orson Welles) is best-known for pioneering the music video format with the early promotional films of the Stones and the Beatles. Is his presence here even worth remarking upon, or is he just another Stones hagiographer whose vision is totally sublimated to the needs of Jagger and Richards? What say you?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Good question. The extravagantly-named Lindsay-Hogg didn’t leave too many fingerprints on </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock and Roll Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Leafing through my notes (unlike Keith, I have a terrible memory), I see that I mostly approve of his direction when I liked the performance, and seemed to take issue with it when I didn’t (as with Jethro Tull, which I reiterate did not move me at all).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">During the Stones’ set Lindsay-Hogg’s focus is squarely on Jagger. Poor Nicky Hopkins is off in a submerged corner, barely even visible (and too low in the mix as well). The camerawork in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy for the Devil </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">provides a contrast to what Lindsay-Hogg does here. Both directors filmed music being played in indoor circular spaces. But Godard showed up with a single camera, and Lindsay-Hogg’s got an army of them. And instead of the aimless drift of Godard’s camera, in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rock and Roll Circus</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> we’re treated to copious images of our front men and women, often in extreme close-up.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That leads to some good moments, like the borderline-iconic one where Mick tears of his shirt to bear those devils. But then, during “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” we have to watch Mick singing “you cannot always get the man that you want” directly to a group of women in the audience, which comes off as downright mean.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The visual imagination in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Circus </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">comes from its set and non-musical performers, along with the Who’s kinetic “Quick One.” Which isn’t Lindsay-Hogg’s fault, really--who would watch the Stones play for 30 minutes if you had to stare at the leaden faces of Watts and Wyman? The band didn’t seem to mind his direction, and continued to work with him through </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tattoo You</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for the Stones’ performance, we’re basically in agreement. A lot of the songs start off sluggishly, but pick up (weren’t these guys used to being awake at 5 AM?). I don’t hear a definitive version of anything in the film. “Sympathy” sounds good, but no better than it does towards the end of Godard’s film. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As for “Salt of the Earth,” I’ve always liked it, and it’s a fitting closer to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beggar’s Banquet</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I don’t think Maslin’s wrong, but where she hears condescension I notice estrangement. I think you hit the nail on the head--the Stones were singing about a world they and their circus of starfuckers were light years away from (“they don’t look real to me/in fact they look so strange”). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Salt of the Earth” would make a great soundtrack for a beer commercial, but it’s less apt for a movie-ending singalong. It’s telling that the Stones have only played it a handful of times since.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We won’t see much of Brian Jones after this, so a few words about him. By this point, he was so marginal to the Stones that it’s depressing to watch him. Jones had lost his band. He’s barely audible for most of the film, as you mention, and he’s wearing a weird purple jacket with green-yellow pants. He looks like a creepy, elfin version of the Minnesota Vikings mascot.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet, for the length of one song he plays some elegiac slide guitar. For three minutes, you can hear Jones playing loud and clear. His slide drifts up from a lonely place, playing one of the most gorgeous songs in his band’s catalog. It’s hard not to hear “No Expectations” as an elegy for Brian Jones.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Along with “Sympathy,” that’s the highlight of the Stones’ set. For four other songs, Jagger’s willpower drives the band. But on “Expectations” the group’s founder discovers his spark one final time, as he plays a song about moving on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me throw it back to you, along with a hypothetical. In an alternate universe where a Tony Iommi-featuring Jethro Tull and The Dirty Mac both recorded albums in 1969, which would be better? Would either hold a candle to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let It Bleed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> That’s a tricky question with an easy answer. Jethro Tull did release an album in 1969, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stand Up</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which has some slow, swampy electric blues rock that Iommi would further innovate in Sabbath. Whether Iommi’s signature detuned heaviness would have improved the album overall, it’s hard to say. (Iommi’s tenure in Tull was apparently so short because he couldn’t stand his bandmates--surprising when you consider his 50-year association with Ozzy Osbourne.) As for the Dirty Mac album, I imagine something like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plastic Ono Band </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">crossed with the Blind Faith album, and who knows? That might have sounded all right. However, neither of them would have topped </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let It Bleed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Very little does.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While I can’t really defend Jethro Tull’s act on musical grounds--as a dubbed performance, it isn’t even Iommi’s guitar you hear--I do have to stick up for poor Ian Anderson, who gets considerable grief from some rock fans (observe Dean Christgau’s series of oddly personal putdowns </span><a href="http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Jethro+Tull" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). Hopping on one leg and playing the flute, he’s a bewildering frontman, and as defiantly unsexy a voice in rock as there ever was. I think his raving jester act has value and uniqueness, especially back in the late 60s, and many of the best Jethro Tull tunes still hold up (my favorite is “Teacher”). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The song they play, “A Song for Jeffrey,” is simple blues rock, but has a shimmering 12-string slide guitar tone that reminds me of </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1JAhFAQigY" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zeppelin’s take on “Traveling Riverside Blues.”</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Most people in retrospect probably focus on Iommi’s presence in the video, but I enjoy the moves of harmonica-playing bassist Glenn Cornick, a major part of early Tull. Still, the performance is hampered by the fact it is a recording. There’s no getting around that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The same could be said about Marianne Faithfull’s performance, which I find the most skippable of the film. Faithfull was and is a great musical artist, but her music back when she was known for her association with Mick (“As Tears Go By,” other weepy covers) is not nearly as strong as the bold 70s post-relationship solo albums. Whereas other musicians in the film rely on instruments and movement, Faithfull is stationary, sitting and facing the camera in a Disney dress. Lindsay-Hogg’s camera swoops in Hollywood-style, filming her face like an object of a Renoir painting. The song she plays is a serviceable ballad, but it is less memorable than any other tune in the film.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This leaves Taj Mahal and the Who, who you correctly say give the best performances. I love the bass line for “(Ain’t That) A Lot of Love,” which has a very classic Motown quality. A solid, unchanging bass line, but boy does it build. And the Who, of course, are explosive. The directness of the power trio+vocalist setup, the intensity of their playing, the visceral touches they put into their performances (Pete’s windmilling, Keith’s tom-based supercharged patter, Rog’s microphone swinging) are clearly calculated to excite the audience, but the passion of the performance is real. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And let’s give it up for the late John Entwistle, legendary stoic and acid wit, who booms on bass and gives a great vocal performance as the pervy “Ivor the engine driver.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, I wanted to add to your thoughts on Brian Jones. You stated everything that needed to be said about “No Expectations” and how it reflected Jones’ role in the band. This is the last film in the Stones chronology where he is alive on camera. The relative absence of Jones in all the documentaries so far shows, to me, the lack of interest Mick and Keith had in their peer’s musical progressivism. Had Jones not drowned, or had he continued with the band, the Stones’ sound going into the earlier 1970s could have been remarkably different.</span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-82907196057505606662014-05-19T08:45:00.000-05:002014-06-01T17:05:06.219-05:00Stones on Film Week Two: Sympathy for the Devil/1 + 1 (1968)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Sympathy-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://whatculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Sympathy-3.jpg" height="153" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard</b></div>
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<b>Available <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sympathy-Devil-Sean-Lynch/dp/B0000DC13U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400501610&sr=8-1&keywords=sympathy+for+the+devil+godard">on DVD</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stones-Sympathy-Devil/dp/B00H8A550A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1400501643&sr=8-2&keywords=sympathy+for+the+devil+godard">for rent</a></b></div>
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<i style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You are reading Stones on Film, a 13-part dialogue covering notable Rolling Stones documentary and concert films through a critical lens. Today is week two. Archive <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/search/label/Stones%20on%20Film">here</a>.</i></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After opening credits and a primitive painted interstitial (“stonesrolling”), the film begins with Brian Jones and Mick Jagger on acoustic guitars, humming away at a chord progression that sounds familiar. It is “Sympathy for the Devil,” but in its larval stage. They are sitting in a large recording booth in front of a brightly-colored soundbooth, and there is a garish pink rug on the floor. Bill Wyman, revealed to be sitting behind the guitarists, wears a shirt with the same color of pink. Suddenly, Keith Richards cuts in from the left of the frame, muttering some instructions to the group. The music stops, and the camera pans right to Charlie Watts in the corner, bored and noodling at the drums.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This opening two minutes basically establish one of two distinct tonalities set by Jean-Luc Godard in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy For the Devil</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (originally </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1 + 1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but re-titled against Godard’s will). Half of the film showcases the five Stones banging out the song that will become</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sympathy for the Devil,” occasionally with session musicians and vaguely familiar faces (such as Nicky Hopkins on organ, last seen drinking and crooning Beatles tunes in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is my Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). The other half of the film is harder to describe, but it basically involves a lot of Black Panther iconography and radical sloganeering, as well as some comic book imagery and implied sexual violence. These scenes are linked to the Stones segments in that they involve Godard’s signature long takes, in which the camera begins with an image, then pans laterally until it rests upon another image, then returns in the opposite direction.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tonal shifts between the two halves become apparent about eleven minutes into the film, when we break with the Stones and cut to a black man, sitting in a wheelbarrow in a junk yard. He is reading an excerpt from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Blues People </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Amiri Baraka. At first, it seems like Godard is making some sort of connection between the American black music the Stones appropriated and the rights struggles of African Americans in the 60s. This at least seems like a profound and salient point. But then that point sits there, and doesn’t really elaborate. It is one of many empty Marxist slogans aimed or shouted at the viewer, in increasingly inartful scenarios. Then it gets worse: another Black Panther in the junkyard reads Eldridge Cleaver’s ugly commentary on white women. While he reads this, caucasian females trussed in white rags are taken into empty cars and shot.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It soon becomes clear that Godard is using the Stones elements of the film as a vehicle for increasingly unsubtle and incomprehensible essays on Marxism. In the late 60s, the director was embarking on his “radical period,” films that were less films and more plotless, cynical anti-narratives. Any connection any of this has with the Stones sequences is lost about halfway through, and the other elements in the film (clearly the parts Godard favors) have a habit of annoyingly taking viewers out of the proceedings for no reason.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what of the Stones themselves? If nothing else, Godard’s fingerprints are all over these scenes as well. He was reportedly angry with the studio producers’ decision to include the single version of “Sympathy of the Devil” at the end of the film, and threatened to disown the project. To him, the Stones were not particularly interesting. He does not seem intrigued at all by the recording process or the nature of pop songwriting or anything like that. He captures snippets of conversation with the Stones, but always seemingly at their least significant.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you see where Godard is coming from when he says airing “Sympathy for the Devil” at the end ruins the whole point of the movie? On one level, I see what he means. It would be a mistake to say this film captures the songwriting process at any depth: the film begins with the song already written, and does not include any moments such as when, for instance, the song changes from a slow-building organ anthem (like “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” or “Like a Rolling Stone”) to its famous samba rhythm. On the other hand, this seems to demonstrate Godard at his most insufferable, and for all his innovations this film stands as a perfect reason why my mind shuts off when his characters start talking politics.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And what did you think of Brian Jones? Curious how yet again he is barely heard in these brief snippets of performance. He seems, like Godard, increasingly unconcerned with what is going on around him. Perhaps he, or Godard, chose to film his this way on purpose? Already we are seeing a pattern.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I should say off the bat that I’ve never been a Godard fan. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Breathless</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I’ve warmed to and the primary colors and studied cool of a film like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Contempt </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are hard to deny. But for a Godard skeptic, or even a Stones skeptic, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy for the Devil</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is just about the worst place to start.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1 + 1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a decent title for the film, but its halves don’t add up. You’re right that the studio scenes and political stagings aren’t effectively integrated. We see the Stones at various moments in the creation of one of their finest songs, one we’ll discuss again in this series. And we see what the director imagines to be scenes from the class struggle in 1968. The audio occasionally spills over from one half to the other, but Godard doesn’t seek to weave them together.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You ask if </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy for the Devil</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, if left to the director’s devices, would have turned out better? I’m inclined to say no. The project is rotten at its core. I don’t think that hearing the song in full particularly affected my viewing experience--that’s a decision that might agonize an auteur, but doesn’t particularly change the film. The Stones get closer and closer to that final version as the film draws on. Why not let us hear where they arrived? How does that blunt all those comic shop seig hiels? (Don’t ask.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the missed connections between the studio scenes and Marxist plays that’s really frustrating. There’s not a dialectic here, where the halves are feeding off one another or lending meaning to the film even when they’re off-screen.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Sympathy for the Devil” is a political song, but if you were going to choose one </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beggar’s Banquet </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">jam to build your 1968 film around, surely you’d choose “Street Fighting Man.” There’s a song that evokes May in Paris, the Black Power salute and the DNC riots. “Sympathy” just makes me think about Bolsheviks.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the structure leads us in two very different directions, which never reconcile. Godard sits us inside Olympic Studios, with its period-appropriate oranges, yellows, reds, browns and greens. It’s an odd setting for a political film. No one in the room talks politics--mostly, the musicians look weary--and they’re in a fucking recording studio. These are places that exist to screen out reality, its noises and distractions. They’re isolation chambers. Which makes Godard’s interjections all the more annoying.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, I did think that the studio scenes were pretty interesting. We open with the Stones working on a barely recognizable version of “Sympathy.” There are three acoustics, and Jagger sounds Dylan-y, like he would on “Jigsaw Puzzle.” The take recalls “Tangled Up In Blue” as much as it does “Sympathy for the Devil,” and it’s nice, but it lacks the charge of the final version. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When we next see the Stones, on a different day, we’re molested by a graphic voiceover. One that’s poorly recorded as well--you’d think that Godard could have booked a little studio time for his voice actors. Once that subsides, we get Godard’s wandering camera tracking the Stones, starting with the back of Jones’ head. Jones is barely audible in the mix. Mick, his pink trousers matching his lips exactly, chews out Charlie for playing “a bit dead.” Wyman is playing percussion, and Richard is on bass.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually--the film tracks several days worth of takes on the song--Sympathy gets more infernal, with each congo, maraca, and bongo taking us one circle lower. The “woo woos”--so natural in the final song--turn out to be seven dudes standing around one microphone. They sound weirdly flat. But we see and hear the Stones getting closer and closer, figuring out just what it is they have.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the best moments in the studio comes towards the end, as a purple-clad Richard plays some lost classic. The riff is alternatively twisted and anthemic, with the fierce electric energy he’d ultimately bring to the solos in “Sympathy.” Charlie pounds away at a weird groove. And then, out of nowhere, the final version of “Sympathy for the Devil” drops in over the same take. OK, maybe that wasn’t the best place for the song.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But you’re right--Godard doesn’t seem particularly interested in anything inside the studio. Not the songwriting, not the band dynamics, not the mechanics of recording. He brings more imagination to the film’s political moments. But all the people talking in ideology...It’s meaningless garbage, isn’t it? (“Do you think drugs are a spiritual form of gambling?”). It’s offensive to the audience, and it’s terrible cinema.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s an interesting moment, when the black revolutionary in the junkyard reads aloud on race and music. It’s germane to the Stones, and to what we’re hearing back in the studio. Godard is doing something that’s meaningful to both halves of the film. Samba and lyrics about satan did not originate with white Englishmen, after all. But the scene takes some tasteless and sexist turns, drags on forever, and loses whatever spark Amiri Baraka’s thoughts briefly gave it. For a film about art and revolution, the sparks fly very rarely.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before I toss it back to you, let me make a request. Play devil’s advocate--what about this film might someone love? Am I too bourgeois to get it?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And another topic I haven’t gotten to--the Stones’ transformation in the years between </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy for the Devil</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. It’s extraordinary, isn’t it?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NS:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> As a big fan of of Godard, I would be happy to play temporary advocate. The film does have its adherents--among them, </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zkfL-rgom0" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lee Ranaldo</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Not even Ranaldo is inclined to pay much attention to the Marxist gobbledygook that you 100% accurately describe as “meaningless garbage.” However, as I mentioned a bit previously, I think Godard’s approach to long takes is both lovely and original, and in another world it would be an ideal means of panning around Olympic Studios and catching the Stones in various moments of creativity. To his credit, I think Godard’s camera does pack in a lot of visual information about the Stones, when he bothers to show them. Perhaps he would have been better-suited to a concert film than something like this.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I like the comic book imagery as well, but as with the Baraka recitation, there’s more the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">suggestion</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of an idea (something about pop art imagery in comics and radical politics) than any actual idea. Godard’s other experimental works during this period, like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Le Gai Savoir </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tout va Bien</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, did similar things, but at least those films had striking and thoughtful imagery and editing juxtapositions that played with and challenged the Marxist agitprop--they were “dialectical” in a way this film obviously strives but fails to be. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I first saw this film as a high schooler, I was more inclined to give Godard, a filmmaking hero, the benefit of my patience. I looked at the film as an experimental take on the concert film, and I felt the filmmaker was drawing some profound parallels between the Stones and their appropriation of African-American art. Now, I look at these same scenes and wonder how any Marxist could ever have taken them seriously. The dialogue in this film, when not plagiarized from other sources, is so bad it doesn’t even matter when intrusive, poorly-recorded voiceovers interrupt what people are saying.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only two films into this series and the group is beginning to age rapidly, as you noted. The difference between the Stones here and in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> remind me of the Beatles’ metamorphosis between </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Hard Day’s Night </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Magical Mystery Tour</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In both cases, the two bands underwent extraordinary, unfathomable changes, both musical and cosmetic, within a 2-3 year window. Mick and Charlie’s hair is getting longer; Keith, even then, is starting to look a bit rough; Bill Wyman, bless him, is wearing hideous clothes. Among his peers, Brian Jones continues to look and act the same as he did in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Did you notice how often Godard films him from the back, like a faceless character in a dream? As we’ve argued before, there are portents and portents in these types of films if you choose to look for them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One final question: what part of the Stones’ recording process were you most excited or intrigued to see as a fan? Was it the “woo-woo” backing vocals, Keith’s soloing (you can hear him biting Hendrix when he goofs off), Richards on bass, or something else? For me, it was about 45 minutes in, when the whole rhythm of the song completely changes to the saucy “Sympathy of the Devil” samba we know and love. Seeing Charlie Watts and assorted percussionists refine the beat is an absolute pleasure, no matter what else Godard surrounds this movie with. And it could have been a much better movie. -NS</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AM:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Thanks for sharing that Lee Ranaldo video. I think he does a good job of defending the film, which he calls a “complex viewing experience.” That’s fair, but it’s not always a worthwhile viewing experience. The agitprop scenes left even Lee stranded between the times and the tides.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Glad you brought up the cinematography--you’re right that many of the longs takes are quite lovely. As documentary, Godard isn’t able to stage the studio sections in takes as elegant as</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Touch of Evil</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. But as the camera roams around the studio, it does capture some great small moments. Like Keith and Brian lighting up, or Jones looking animated while he plays guitar. I didn’t get to your question about Jones in my last response. But those two moments were the ones that stood out to me, where I saw something of a spark. Otherwise, Brian’s a non-entity. He’s clearly no longer The Leader of the Rolling Stones, as he once believed himself to be. It’s no longer his band, and he doesn’t seem to be inserting himself or his ideas into the creative process.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m surprised, in fact, that he’s at the studio at all, much less for a recording session spread across several days. His appearances at sessions were pretty sporadic by this point. The moment where Richard tosses matches and cigarettes to Brian stood out to me, since Anita Pallenberg had already left Jones for Richard. That was pretty traumatic for Jones, who was in a Moroccan hospital when Anita made her decision.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The band members are all different people from the ones we saw in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie Is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. We don’t hear from them in sit-down interviews, but we don’t need to. The clothes, hair and sound have all metamorphosed. In the sessions Godard captured, they’re sketching out the initial drafts of the sound they’d be exploring for the next decade. That’s reason enough to see their half of this film.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the video with Lee Ranaldo (love that a copy of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Goo</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is on the table), he mentions that Godard first considered making a film with the Beatles. That’s an interesting “what if?” A version of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1 + 1</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> based around “Helter Skelter” could be pretty killer--at least in the studio.</span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-9552513906265463922014-05-12T10:01:00.001-05:002014-05-19T11:25:27.665-05:00Stones on Film Week One: Charlie is My Darling (1965)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/m4U6WwnrV1lF2ys5Ny2mIOaxAgx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/m4U6WwnrV1lF2ys5Ny2mIOaxAgx.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Directed by: Peter Whitehead</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Available for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stones-Charlie-My-Darling/dp/B00H8AJ6WS/ref=sr_1_1?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1399906336&sr=1-1&keywords=charlie+is+my+darling">rent and on DVD</a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>You are reading Stones on Film, a 13-part dialogue covering notable Rolling Stones documentary and concert films through a critical lens. Today is week one. Archive <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/search/label/Stones%20on%20Film">here</a>.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aaron</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: We start with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a film shot over just two days in 1965, as the Stones toured Ireland. Due to legal issues, it didn’t see a real release until late last year.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s modest in its ambitions, which works well enough. The real highlight is the concert footage: at two Ireland shows, the band sounds fierce. I don’t think we’re seeing the entirety of either show, but the first one features fast and surprisingly heavy versions of “This May Be The Last Time” and “Time On My Side,” the latter buoyed by precise pounding from Watts, an infusion of electricity and a jangling Keef solo. It primes the audience--seen here in swirling, indistinct masses--to storm the stage and end the show.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The second show starts with fine renditions of “Everybody Needs Somebody” and “Pain In My Heart.” A pummeling “Satisfaction” brings down the house, as a sweaty Jagger shimmies like an angsty scarecrow, Watts grits his teeth, and Wyman even smiles a few times. It brings the song’s angst to the surface--as do the shots of priests keeping watch over the audience, a boy brought to tears, and the police guarding the stage.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Elsewhere, I thought there might be too much music. Did every scene of the Stones in transit need to be papered over with instrumental versions of their music? The brief glimpses of 60’s Ireland were fascinating, and the film didn’t really give them space to breathe. It would have been nice to hear the other acts at these concerts--there were four openers at the second show--but the focus is squarely on the Stones.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wonder--where was Keith? We heard from all of the other band members in interviews, but not him. What did you think of Mick’s philosophizing? Or Jagger/Richards at work on “Sitting On A Fence”? I thought their quick Beatles covers in that hotel room were one of the film’s best moments.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And what of the famous scene of a wasted Jagger, Richards and Andrew Loog Oldham? Not sure I would </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/khiltscher/3471500454/in/set-72157617265145148/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">let my sister go with those guys</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathan:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Keith Richards, unlike the other Stones in the movie, never sits down for a proper interview. This might seem curious, given how much of his life story he’s aggressively offered since then. Perhaps Keef was trying to play the role of the taciturn, mute guitar player, a role more suited for Brian Jones (whose interviews here are perhaps the most illuminating and interesting of the set</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">).
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, Keith is still a presence in the live scenes, as well as the hotel room jams, where he is clearly the dominating force. In the moments where we see him play, it is already apparent that underneath this guy’s cool, cigarette-smoking exterior lies a born ham for the cameras. As Mick Jagger says on several occasions throughout the movie, it takes a very egotistical person to get up on stage and command a packed audience of lunatic teenagers.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was filmed by Peter Whitehead, who is also well-known for directing a lot of the key Stones videos of the 60s (such as the LSD-nightmare vision </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V2b0PUi1gg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadows”</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). He films the scenes in cool black-and-white with handheld cameras, capturing the band both at their most superhuman and at their most vulnerable (and sometimes drunk, as you noted). This naturalistic depiction of the Stones, still new to their element, seems to fall somewhere between Richard Lester’s orgiastic concert scenes in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Hard Day’s Night</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1964) and D.A. Pennebaker’s verite approach in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t Look Back</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (1965). Lucky for us that the Stones are much more hospitable interviewees than Dylan. Most interviews are not super illuminating, but Mick Jagger’s philosophizing (as you named it) is at least lucid, didn’t you think?
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still, at a bit more than an hour, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> feel more like a brief glimpse into a compelling world that falls short of what could have been a defining document of the Stones’ early years. Elsewhere, you cited the overabundance of music in the movie; I wouldn’t say that necessarily, but I do agree that the film is oddly paced. It might have been better served if the musical performances had been spread out more evenly. Then again, the point of the movie is to follow two days in the Stones’ life in chronological order, so fans of linearity in concert docs should be happy.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The performance of “Satisfaction” is, to me, the film’s high point (it’s between that and the riot that ends the previous performance, or maybe when Mick Jagger hums the opening feedback to “I Feel Fine” and knocks over a wine glass). The performance is tremendously guttural and heavy, as if the song was rebuilt for its maximum rave-up potential. I am so glad you cited that wonderful shot of the crying boy and the disapproving look of the priest, which is maybe the one shot in the movie that might belong in the pantheon of great concert movie moments.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s also great is that Whitehead returns to interview that priest later. He is not just a disapproving clergy, but a fan of the Stones. His disapproval, he says, is meant for the anarchic mass of teenage girls who interrupt the performances. This is one of a few scenes where Whitehead asks adults around Ireland what they think of the Stones’ music, and they are surprisingly reasonable in their responses. One man, a train conductor, only likes classical music, but his wife is a big fan. He’s okay with it. “That’s where it falls apart--she’s modern and I’m ancient,” he says of his and his wife’s differing tastes. Is it just me, or does it seem like the older Irish of the 60s had a much more level response to the young pop stars of their day than the equivalent British?
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One final note: “Sittin’ on the Fence,” the song Mick and Keith (along with silent Charlie) work on together, can be found on one of the Stones’ cheapo greatest hits collections </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Flowers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Loved seeing the insight, however momentary, into the Jagger/Richards process in chrysalis.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aaron: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That short interview with the priest is one of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s best moments. A lot of the movie’s vox pops aren’t particularly revealing (although I love the moment where the interviewer has to prompt a mass of fans into saying they love Wyman, since they won’t otherwise). But when the young priest admits he digs the Stones (“The Stones themselves I think are good artists”) you learn a lot about him in just a few moments.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s those kinds of insights into the world that the Stones were travelling through--and transforming--that I wish we saw more of. From 21st century America, the constant smoking, checkered trousers and analog cult of celebrity are alien concepts. I doubt they were for Whitehead, which is probably why he’s not interested in exploring them.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Keith wouldn’t have given great interviews for the film. For a rock star, he’s admittedly shy, and was not particularly given to self-reflection at that age. But I still wish we could have heard </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">something</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from him--you get an interesting window on the other Stones through their interviews.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mick’s philosophizing is, as you note, mostly on-point. “A crowd always seems to make violence,” he remarks--a totally reasonable opinion for someone who’s spent the last years of his life igniting and then fleeing masses of teens. Later on, he says that “the kids are looking for something else.” Something they would soon find, I guess, in drugs or feminism or the Rolling Stones. And sex, which Mick downplays as an important part of his lyrics.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still, his musings on how the world, and especially the stage, are a stage are sub-Shakespearean. I get the sense that Mick in these interviews was trying to imitate the higher-minded TV talk show guests of those days.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brian’s interviews are fascinating, and eerily prescient. He speaks in short, breathy bursts. When he says he never thinks far ahead, it’s terrifying. I’m struck by his face. There’s no trace of the hard living, anger and betrayal that were written all over him a few years later. But he’s got this weird gnomic quality--an effete little presence gazing out from under his medieval bob. He can be morbid, but there are also shots of Jones looking lively and happy. From 2013, we know where he’s going to end up, but watching him here I realize that his life didn’t have to end as it did. I’d never considered that before.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Watts seems depressed throughout. He’s always been the nice, normal Stone, but if I had seen this film and knew nothing else of the band, I would assume he quit shortly afterward. He speaks from a daze. Wherever his mind was, it wasn’t Ireland.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What did you think of Andrew Loog Oldham’s presence? On the train between shows, and in a stupor with Mick and Keith, he seems to relish being one of the lads. He seems more average than the bandmembers, but at no moment does he really resemble a businessman. I suppose the cameras weren’t around for that.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One thing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gets across well is the band’s rootlessness. They’re constantly on the go, in hotels, airports, cars, and trains. It must be wearying, perhaps explaining Charlie’s defeated outlook. The music business of the time really asked a lot of its stars, having the Stones headline these revues around the world. Shipping them out to different markets, like the records they made.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But everywhere they go, the Stones are playing music. Mostly offstage, just for themselves. It still meant everything to them.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nathan:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “What do you like about Bill Wyman?” (Interviewee turns and walks away).
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your observations about the individual Stones interviews resonated with me. I have often been struck by Brian Jones’ appearance and manner of speaking. Jones is so unnervingly pretty, he seems more like a Christian choir boy than a lead guitarist in a dangerous rock n roll band.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet underneath those charming blank features, Brian was an aggressively antisocial individual, even by rock star standards, whose progressive musical vision always outpaced Mick and Keith’s. It is notable and sad that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is both the first Rolling Stones documentary that we discuss in this series, and the last time that Brian gets an opportunity to relay his perspectives of the Stones’ success and its attendant difficulties.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re right about Mick’s musings re: “the stage,” but from his first spoken words to the camera (“One’s brought up to think that pop music is a very ephemeral thing”), he at least seems invested in saying some things about pop music culture that were relatively new in 1965.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In his </span><a href="http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/movies/the-rolling-stones-charlie-is-my-darling-ireland-1965.html?_r=0" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">review of the film</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, A.O. Scott said that Mick Jagger looks “at times like a cheeky schoolboy, at others like an earnest graduate student.” This is a different on-camera Mick Jagger we are seeing here, even than the one we would see only a few years later bedecked in war paint in Whitehead videos like “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” This is a Jagger who is still processing fame, using the camera to exorcise some very complicated feelings about it. In future documentaries, he will become less devoted to exploring this part of his career in an honest or compelling fashion. That side of his psyche would be explored primarily through his lyrics.
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s funny, we will be seeing more of Andrew “Loog” Oldham later in our series. He certainly is more of a presence in early Stones documentaries than, say, Ian Stewart. In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, he resembles a slick caddy who somehow roped a job moving the Stones’ luggage. Loog’s role in the film is mostly as a silent foil for Keith, the other main individual who does not appear in interviews. The infamous drunk scene at the end of the film is portentous not only for what it says about the band’s substance problems, but also about how handlers like Loog perpetuated this lifestyle of hard living as a way of marketing the band’s “dangerousness.” No surprise, then, that Whitehead had cameras trained to record this kind of drunken debauchery, even in 1965. It’s a sad, remarkable little scene, with or without the context of what comes later.</span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-54124798310030188212014-05-08T08:00:00.000-05:002014-05-08T08:00:00.332-05:00Stones on Film: An Introduction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>50 years ago</b></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a young group schooled on Elmore James and Chuck Berry covers broke out at London’s Marquee Club. Since then, The Rolling Stones have become an institution, even as the principal members have advanced far beyond the UK’s retirement age. Their career has been as exhaustively documented. The Stones’ legacy on film--in addition to their music--is an interesting one, a way to challenge and preserve their image as a band, and an enticement to sell a few more records.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Starting with </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The T.A.M.I. Show</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in 1964, the group have been the subjects of many documentaries, some of them helmed by legendary filmmakers. Artists like Jean-Luc Godard, Hal Ashby, Martin Scorsese, the Maysles brothers, and many others have taken a crack at documenting the life and music of this band, as well as the historical circumstances in which it operated. In this series, my esteemed colleague Aaron Mendelson and I conduct a dialogue that focuses on documentary films made about the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do they suck? Is the music good? What do these films tell us about the band, its legacy and the culinary preferences of Bill Wyman? These are all questions that we’ll tackle in this series, which we’re calling Stones On Film.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There have been at least a dozen notable Stones films in the group’s history. Several of those films are only recently part of public circulation. Last year, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was released, 45 years after it was filmed. A concert flick, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> arrived on DVD in 2010 after only a limited theatrical release in the early 70s. Recent films like </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in Exile</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crossfire Hurricane</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> have illuminated aspects of the band’s work from a modern, historical perspective. And </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a film so notorious it was litigated into hiding, is now available to anyone with an internet connection.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In 2014, the Stones’ filmography is larger than ever, and probably larger than any other rock band. It’s a good time, and excuse, to discuss the Stones’ celluloid adventures. We want to examine the concert documentary by combining aspects of film and music criticism. This has resulted in (I hope) a hybrid critical style. We will review the quality of Stones performance and footage, of course. We’ll also talk the aspects of filmmaking--things like like composition, editing, camera movement, sound, narrative, and so on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ve both been Stones historians since our teenage years, as well as humorless trivia pedants (just kidding!). We will also discuss the ever-changing dynamic between Mick and Keith, tensions with other members, the evolution of the group’s songwriting and live performance style, and of course, the various controversies, scandals, and other dogma and disgraces that made the group the most notorious of its day.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the course of the next couple months, here are the films we will review:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Charlie is My Darling</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Peter Whitehead)</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sympathy for the Devil/1+1 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Jean-Luc Godard)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Rolling Stones Rock ‘N Roll Circus </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Michael Lindsay-Hogg)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in the Park </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Leslie Woodhead and Jo Durden-Smith)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gimme Shelter</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stones in Exile</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Stephen Kijak)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cocksucker Blues</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Robert Frank)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Rollin Binzer)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crossfire Hurricane </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Brett Morgen)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s Spend the Night Together </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Hal Ashby)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">25x5: The Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Nigel Finch)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shine a Light</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Martin Scorsese)</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BONUS (What could it be??)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you consider yourself a Stones fan, there is a lot of great writing coming up. Don’t miss it! If you are some sort of Stones “hater,” I recommend reevaluating your life and aesthetic choices, and sharing your spite in the comments section. Either way, enjoy.</span></div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-51906256943907001122014-01-11T10:00:00.000-06:002014-01-11T10:00:05.656-06:00Rockaliser Radio: Rockcast IVFor year four, Aaron and Nathan reconvene for the immense, three hour fourth installment of the Rockcast.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="30" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/Rockcast2014" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="500"></iframe>
Will your hosts agree about the merits of jazz odysseys? Can they simultaneously cast aspersion on and appreciate Skrillex's musical contributions? How inspired will they be by the story of Nile Rodgers?<br />
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All will be revealed! Listen immediately! You can stream above and <a href="https://archive.org/details/Rockcast2014" target="_blank">download the podcast</a> here.<br />
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And for good measure, here are Nathan and Aaron's lists:<br />
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<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2014/01/and-im-known-to-kick-it-like-captain-of.html" target="_blank">Aaron's 2013 favorites</a><br />
1. Deerhunter, <i>Monomania</i><br />
2. Janelle Monae, <i>The Electric Lady</i><br />
3. Kurt Vile, <i>Wakin On A Pretty Daze</i><br />
4. A$AP Rocky, <i>Long. Live. A$AP.</i><br />
5. Waxahatchee, <i>Cerulean Salt</i> <br />
6. Chance The Rapper, <i>Acid Rap</i><br />
7. Danny Brown, <i>Old</i><br />
8. Grant Hart, <i>The Argument</i><br />
9. Run The Jewels, <i>Run The Jewels</i><br />
10. Marnie Stern, <i>The Chronicles of Marnia</i><br />
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<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2013/12/another-extraordinary-year-nathans-10.html" target="_blank">Nathan's 2013 favorites</a><br />
1. A$AP Rocky, <i>Long. Live. A$AP.</i><br />
2. Janelle Monáe, <i>The Electric Lady</i><br />
3. Daft Punk, <i>Random Access Memories</i><br />
4. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, <i>Push the Sky Away</i><br />
5. My Bloody Valentine, <i>mbv</i><br />
6. In Solitude, <i>Sister</i><br />
7. Marnie Stern, <i>The Chronicles of Marnia</i><br />
8. Richard Thompson, <i>Electric</i><br />
9. Thundercat, <i>Apocalypse</i><br />
10. Flatbush Zombies, <i>Better Off Dead</i>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-53849398496923306342014-01-01T12:00:00.000-06:002014-01-15T18:36:05.850-06:00And I'm Known To Kick It Like The Captain Of A Soccer Team: Aaron's Favorites, 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>1. Deerhunter, <i>Monomania</i></b><br />
Absolute faith in the power of rock and roll. Anthems for staring at swamps in the twilight. Beauty in tangled peals of howling noise and hushed reveries. World-conquering riffs, crystalline shuffles, joy in transformation.<br />
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<b>2. Janelle Monae, <i>The Electric Lady</i></b><br />
Monaé is an effortless virtuoso. She flits around a shimmering universe of her own creation, going wherever the funk (and Kellindo Parker’s insane guitar) lead.<br />
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<b>3. Kurt Vile, <i>Wakin On A Pretty Daze</i> </b><br />
It’s loose, he’s lethargic. But there’s not a wasted moment on <i>Daze</i>, provided you turn up the speakers and let the golden vibes soak in.<br />
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<b>4. A$AP Rocky, <i>Long. Live. A$AP.</i></b><br />
Rocky closes his eyes, dives in, and comes up with the sound he’s always heard in his head--hard, slurred beats, familiar and alive. All without breaking a sweat.<br />
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<b>5. Waxahatchee, <i>Cerulean Salt</i> </b><br />
Katie Crutchfield’s sparse, yearning guitar rock sounds like country music to me. It’s almost painfully intimate. But that’s the thing about Crutchfield--she’s tough as nails.<br />
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<b>6. Chance The Rapper, <i>Acid Rap</i></b><br />
Straight from the South Side and with a foot in Native Tongues kaleidoscopics, an 18-year-old running circles around the competition. In a voice that mutates every minute, Chance spits details that will rip your heart open.<br />
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<b>7. Danny Brown, <i>Old</i></b><br />
Hip-hop’s reigning elf king reintroduces himself, laying on the grime and charisma thicker than ever. I like the terse first half, but the clubby Side B’ll make you snap your neck too.<br />
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<b>8. Grant Hart, <i>The Argument</i></b><br />
A <i>Paradise Lost</i>-inspired double LP brought to life by the melodic gifts of an American treasure. It’s inspiring that Grant actually made this, more inspiring still that it’s this good.<br />
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<b>9. Run The Jewels, </b><i><b>Run The Jewels</b></i><br />
Get out of town. Go fuck yourself. This unremittingly intense neo-boom bap tag team isn’t for you.<br />
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<b>10. Marnie Stern, <i>The Chronicles of Marnia</i></b><br />
Showering your consciousness with the blasts of guitar, explosive drumming and forest spirit vocals. This is Marnie’s <i>Axis: Bold As Love</i>--her gifts as a songwriter catching up to her sick guitar skills.<br />
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Edit: I voted in this year's Pazz & Jop (<a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/critics/2013/3916080/" target="_blank">here's my ballot</a>), and submitted a Top 10 singles list:<br />
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And here's <a href="http://aacm.tumblr.com/post/73459594726/where-my-top-10-landed-on-the-pazz-jop" target="_blank">my yearly Tumblr tabulation</a>.Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-51817035605916358152013-12-30T16:27:00.000-06:002013-12-31T06:51:14.677-06:00Another Extraordinary Year: Nathan's 10 Best Albums of 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>1. A$AP Rocky, <i>Long. Live. A$AP.</i></b><br />
Though the album came out in January and had leaked before the year began, Harlem's newest favorite son Rocky nevertheless provided the masterpiece to beat in 2013. His impeccable ear and experimentation with extreme bass ranges and extraordinary beats led to an album of incalculable riches--spacey, immediately memorable club jams ("Goldie," "Fuckin' Problems"), great collaborations ("PMW"), dalliances with genres outside of hip-hop (the improbably wonderful Skrillex production "Wild for the Night") and the greatest posse record in many many moons ("1 Train"), all providing one amazing rush after another, 12 times in a row.<br />
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<b style="background-color: #eeeeee;">2. Janelle Mon<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">áe</span></span>, <i>The Electric Lady</i></b><br />
<span style="background-color: #eeeeee;">Speaking of many moons, <span style="font-family: inherit;">Ms. Mon<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">áe<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span>had been mostly off the grid since the release of <i>The ArchAndroid</i> in 2010. Turns out she was fine-tuning a record that was maybe even better, more cohesive and sonically varied, in addition to demonstrating an unprecedented level of craftmanship and sheer exultant pleasure that reached rapturous levels at times. Mon<span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">á</span><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">e</span>'s</span> prodigious voice, joyous production, and empowering, socially relevant lyrics were among a few of the album's virtues, which were otherwise brimming.</span><br />
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<b>3. Daft Punk, <i>Random Access Memories</i></b><br />
The opening thesis is "give life back to music": two robots survey the current EDM landscape and find it lacking in the type of warmth and humanity out of which great dance music originally came. Hence the collaborators--Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder, Paul Williams--who help the robots provide the album with the depth, feeling, and occasional melancholy of a great lost 70s disco LP.<br />
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<b>4. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, <i>Push the Sky Away</i></b><br />
The album title is a perfect four-word metaphor for an elder man's futile fight against mortality. After rocking hard with Grinderman and executing a brilliant string of late-career gems, Cave scales back the aggression and punkish energy a bit here. This is his <i>On the Beach</i>, an album that does not rock so much, but slowly builds through a molasses of top-shelf songwriting, wonderful orchestration, and literary, confessional lyrics.<br />
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<b>5. My Bloody Valentine, <i>mbv</i></b><br />
Their last album may have come out when I was 6, but MBV's latest sounded the furthest thing from a reunion record. It was as if the last 22 years had suddenly vanished in an ether of aggressive flange, tremolo, and pitch-bending along with the familiar distortion, metronomic backbeat, and barely audible vocals we know so well. Ambitious and mind-bending, only the album's song titles were generic.<br />
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<b>6. In Solitude, <i>Sister</i></b><br />
Yeah, it's one of those token metal albums that non-metal heads take to. So what? I will take my bluesy, riff-oriented hard rock however I can, and Sweden's In Solitude provided the year's most refreshing slab of British 70s metal-indebted jams. Each song has rhythm and panache, as well as hooks that buzzsaw their way into the listener's memory banks.<br />
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<b>7. Marnie Stern, <i>The Chronicles of Marnia</i></b><br />
The greatest guitarist in America really pushed against her limitations on this, her fourth LP and first without longtime drummer Zach Hill. Her offbeat approach to fret tapping is still there, but is more effectively integrated into the songs than ever. And Stern's voice has a really lovely and longing quality now, something I never expected. Kid Millions admirably takes over for Hill on drums and together the two musicians provide moments of appealing still and calm in between sets of Stern's normally frenetic guitar/drum alchemy.<br />
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<b>8. Richard Thompson, <i>Electric</i></b><br />
The elder folkie and guitar hero goes the stripped-down power trio route, which emphasizes Thompson's great axe skills. The result is a late-career success that is muscular and hard-rocking, while still immersed in Thompson's Celtic and folk-based songwriting. Thompson has always been a great player, but his guitar solos throughout this album are, I cannot emphasize this enough, particularly kick-ass.<br />
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<b>9. Thundercat, <i>Apocalypse</i></b><br />
An unfairly gifted bassist who collaborates with everyone from New Zealand pop star Kimbra to Suicidal Tendencies, Thundercat produced a next-level jazz funk LP that sounded like nothing else in 2013. His complex and layered bass skills were a perfect match with Flying Lotus' shimmering and psychedelic production. The result was a brilliant concoction of sweet jazzy smooth jams plus the occasional roaring funk classic ("Oh Sheit! It's X").<br />
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<b>10. Flatbush Zombies, <i>Better Off Dead</i></b><br />
2013 was an extraordinary year for hip-hop, no question. This list could have consisted entirely of Danny Brown, Juicy J, Pusha T, Run the Jewels, the Underachievers, Action Bronson, Spaceghostpurrp, just to begin with. But one mixtape that I kept coming back to was this one, by a young group out of Brooklyn's "Beast Coast" scene. The Zombies are a loopy three-piece that inventively plays with golden age boom-bap with a bit of horror movie edge (think Gravediggaz crossed with ODB to start). With the work of two hyper-quick emcees (Meech and Juice) as well as one of NYC's great new producing talents (Erick Arc Elliott), the result is a product that would have stood tall with the best of early 90s rap.Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-5734016967326335602013-09-10T17:38:00.000-05:002013-09-13T11:33:58.592-05:00A Look at Janelle Monáe's Metropolis Suite, Part 4: Electric Lady (Part 1) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Finally.<br />
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We picked off last in 2010, in a series <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-at-janelle-monaes-metropolis-cycle_23.html">of</a> <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-at-janelle-monaes-metropolis-cycle_22.html">posts</a><a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-at-janelle-monaes-metropolis-cycle_23.html"> reviewing</a> Janelle Monáe's ambitious sci-fi concept cycle Metropolis, from her debut 2007 EP <i>The Chase </i>to 2010's <i>The ArchAndroid </i>(which contained the second and third suites in the cycle). Then Monáe released no new work for three years, barring the occasional guest voice on a Big Boi, fun., or Estelle number. She was supposedly at Wondaland Studios working on two albums, which she claimed last year would be released according to her "soul clock."<br />
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And now one of those albums, <i>The Electric Lady,</i> is finally here. Can she possibly live up to increased expectations as a sophomore artist? Does <i>Lady</i> build or expand upon the Metropolis mythos in addition to providing a solid listening experience? Did the artist capture this reviewer's heart once more? Spoiler alert: heck yes. I've listened to the album a half-dozen times now, and, while it's too early to compare this to <i>The ArchAndroid</i>, I already feel this album improves on the first's relistenable qualities (even if there are more skits this time around). It is a pleasure to be transported back to this world, and I will keep coming back to this record for a long, long time. My endorsement should be sufficient, but if you want more detail from a preeminent amateur Monáeologist, read on...*<br />
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<b>1. Suite IV (Electric Overture)</b><br />
The latest suite opens with now-customary orchestral pomp, except this time there's a more interesting rhythmic core. A "Peter Gunn"/Link Wray-type guitar line deeply rattles its way around increasingly sumptuous and bouncy string arrangements. The vocals, which arrive later, are filmic and set a scene, laying the melodic groundwork for what is to come. It's better (and shorter) than Ms. Monáe's previous suite openers, perhaps enough so that even my esteemed colleague will <a href="http://aacm.tumblr.com/tagged/i-can%27t-imagine-who-the-audience-for-this-could-be">give it a shot</a>.<br />
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<b>2. Givin' Em What They Love (Feat. Prince)</b><br />
That's definitely Prince on guitar at the beginning, his strums as unmistakable as his increasingly wizened reed of a voice. The Purple One, who pioneered so many potent genre-crosses in his own time, is a natural denizen of Metropolis. The percussion here is tribal and builds slowly, sort of like "The Cross." Prince's work is so good in part because he matches Monáe's vocal line at the exact same pitch--not often we hear him sing that high these days. The song builds to an ecstatic organ and guitar build, with Monáe's voice soaring as Prince's provides spiritual backing vox and trademark ripping (of the axe sort). The strings come back at the end. As in the previous suites, these recurring string arrangements will provide much of the connective tissue between songs.<br />
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<b>3. Q.U.E.E.N. (Feat. Erykah Badu)</b><br />
The album's first single, released on the Internet a few months back, did not light my fire at first. The video was certainly interesting, and introduced the less (literally) buttoned-up, more sexually liberated Monáe of 2013. I grew to like it more after several more listens. The keyboards are very Minneapolis, as indebted to the Time as they are to Prince, but sounded frenetic and unfocused until I paid careful attention a few dozen more times. There's a lot else going on here, not least is Erykah Badu's smoky vocal interlude toward the end of the piece. Then Monáe spits conscious rhymes, in a manner that went out of fashion years ago ("While you're sellin' dope/we'll be sellin' hope"), for what will be the first of several verses on record.<br />
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<b>4. Electric Lady (Feat. Solange)</b><br />
Holy smokes, is this one incredible song. Compared to either "Q.U.E.E.N." or "Dance Apocalyptic," this should be the single. Solange Knowles, the third R&B standard-bearer in a row, is yet another colorful addition to the album's psychedelic palette. If Ms. Knowles made music as energetic and bouncy as this all the time, I would buy copies of her records by the dozens. There's a hint of '90s R&B girl group to the song--think the best and most anthemic TLC or En Vogue. It has that sort of bounce and flavor, as well as requisite drum drops (nothing cooler than when drums drop out and bass keeps going) and chorus of melismatic backing vocals toward the end. Monáe raps again, describing general feminist good times. Solange's role, for the most part, is unobtrusive--Monáe is still the star. So hard not to get caught up in the spirit here. This is ultimate "blast your speakers and dance around your bedroom" music.<br />
<b><br />5. Good Morning Midnight </b><br />
One thing that differentiates <i>The Electric Lady</i> from <i>The ArchAndroid</i> is the presence of track-long skits. And like many concept albums past, the framing device of this album is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_for_the_Deaf">a radio station DJ who fields calls from eccentric listeners</a> (most likely played by various Wondaland collaborators). DJ Crash Crash, "robotic hypnotic psychotic DJ," is broadcasting shout-outs from his listeners. One of them betrays serious prejudice against the robot race, which the DJ dismisses out of hand. Monáe's playful handling of racial prejudice (as displaced through the prism of futuristic robots) is what sticks out most here. There was a lot of that on the last album, but here it is even more overt.<br />
<b><br />6. PrimeTime (Feat. Miguel)</b><br />
Borrowing the backing vocals from the Pixies' "Where Is My Mind"...why not? It makes a great deal of sense in the presence of Miguel, who borrows from rock, punk, and classic psychedelia for his sumptuous R&B in a manner not unlike Monáe (or, obviously, Prince). "PrimeTime" is the album's first proper ballad, but it does not cause the album to lag at all...in fact, this may be the most staggering song yet. It goes beyond mere babymaking music. Over a slow dance groove, Monáe sings a melody so pure and simple it seems ripped out of the Great American Songbook. This album shows how good she is at singing at high registers without being showy or obtrusive. Miguel matches her in the second verse, his syllables more playful, and yet aching. The song is lush, it's romantic, and there is not a single songwriting error to be found here. Props also to returning guitarist Kellindo Parker, nephew of Maceo, who contributes some great, Prince-like guitar work at the end.<br />
<b><br />7. We Were Rock & Roll</b><br />
Seven songs in and the album is yet to slow down. A loose and limber groove propels this track into classic anguished soul territory (I was reminded a bit of one of my musical heroes, Gil Scott-Heron). The song isn't exactly a tribute to rock music, but it has fiery guitar at points, and the subject matter is certainly stereotypical (we are young, on the run, no one understands us, etc.). The song is girded by a descending guitar figure and a syncopated hi-hat rhythm not too far from James Brown at his simplest, along with some hand claps and organ stabs, but otherwise keeps it pretty simple. Monáe's voice is once again the focal point of our attentions, which really pays off when a choir of backing vocals joins up with her to sing "it's alright." Kellindo Parker throws out some more excellent guitar parts here.<br />
<b><br />8. The Chrome Shoppe</b><br />
DJ Crash Crash returns and announces something called the "Cyberfreak Festival." Some robotic sorority girls promise a "bouncing electro-booty contest" which is a good description for this album's sound. Then they announce the next song and single, "Dance Apocalyptic." I have a historically low threshold when it comes to rap skits but these brief snippets do have Monáe's authorial eccentricity stamped all over them, which to me overcomes their non-musical, marking-time aspects.<br />
<b><br />9. Dance Apocalyptic</b><br />
Like "Q.U.E.E.N.," I was not taken by second single "Dance Apocalyptic" at first. The parallels to "Tightrope" were obvious, and this version sounded like the earlier song's brief uke part extended to a punk-ska BPM that never really took off anywhere different or unexpected. The groove here still isn't my favorite, but I've warmed to the message, Monáe's vocals, and most importantly, the song's amazingly upbeat vibe. Elsewhere, though, the song is a bit too sugary and retro, and again, it doesn't go to those magical unexpected places where genre is smashed into millions of irrelevant bits. On one level it is still a great listen, and far from a slog, but at another level it is Janelle-by-numbers. As far as nonsense refrains go, "Smash, smash/bang, bang/don't stop/galang-alang-alang" is merely okay.<br />
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<b>10. Look Into My Eyes</b><br />
Side 4 of <i>Metropolis</i> comes to a close, and after a nine-song sprint, this is the cooling session. Bits of the melody from the opening suite appear again, wedded to stately flamenco guitar and a lush tango atmosphere. The effect is again very, very romantic, to an almost narcotic degree. Monáe's collaborators, Deep Cotton, have gotten even better at arranging strings this time around. If there is any song this resembles, it is <i>Archandroid</i>'s "BaBopByeYa" (splashed with a bit of "Sir Greendown") but while that song was lengthy and almost punishing at times, the airy "Look Into My Eyes" leaves as quickly as it appears. This song and many others on the first side really illustrate how much more of an individual sound Monáe has developed in the last three years--there are moments here when you can tell, even if she was not singing, that this is a Monáe-type jazz progression or modulation. Her songwriting tricks, rather than sounding borrowed or transmuted from the best of Prince, Stevie, and Michael, are starting to sound simply like Janelle. Although not entirely, as we will see in the next suite.<br />
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It occurs to me that I have yet to discuss much of the album's storyline (narrative in concept albums has always been a big blind spot for me). Tune in next time as I delve more deeply into the plight of Cyndi Mayweather with the ruminative, equally staggering fifth suite.<br />
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PREVIOUSLY IN METROPOLIS:<br />
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<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-at-janelle-monaes-metropolis-cycle.html">Suite I (The Chase)</a><br />
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<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-at-janelle-monaes-metropolis-cycle_22.html">Suite II</a><br />
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<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/05/look-at-janelle-monaes-metropolis-cycle_23.html">Suite III</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">*no star rating needed**</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">**no explanation needed for lack of star rating</span>Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-54136959947704930832013-08-20T10:00:00.000-05:002013-08-20T20:49:42.779-05:00The Miracle of the Isleys“That Lady” blows your face off. Its rhythm guitar struts its way out of the gate, soon to be joined by Ernie Isley’s searing lead. Ronald Isley’s vocal, buffeted by a chorus of his brothers, is the equivalent <a href="http://hollywoodnose.com/images/net_worth5/ronald-isley-wealth/how-much-is-ronald-isley-worth.jpg" target="_blank">Ron's arched eyebrow</a>--leering, but needy below that. Stuttering Latin percussion sets the thing on fire, and the three minute guitar solo that closes the song is a jaw-dropper--a shimmering vortex of energy that gives Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Hazel a run for their money. It’s a funk monster, a band rebapitzed in electricity and groove.<br />
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1973, when The Isley Brother released “That Lady” as a single from <i>3 + 3</i>, was a time of seismic change for the band. Look at that album jacket--the one with them in slick, cowboy-pimp costumes--and the evidence is there. The title itself alludes to a handful of new band members. And on the back, there’s the record label: T-Neck Records.<br />
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They couldn’t have chosen a better song to kick off their new era. “That Lady” is a rewrite of 1964 single by none other than The Isley Brothers. Their first stab at the song, titled “Who’s That Lady,” failed to chart. Responding to the rise of The Impressions, the song has a gentle, samba-like lilt. It’s elevator music, absolutely eviscerated by the 1973 version.<br />
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Fuck, it was even eviscerated by their next single. Also from 1964, “Testify” is a bluesy rave-up. In addition to being a startlingly funky song for 1964 (“Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag” wouldn’t arrive for another year), it also features the first recorded appearance of a young Jimi Hendrix. His guitar threatens to engulf “Testify,” and it wasn’t long before Hendrix and the Isleys parted ways.<br />
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“Testify” was the first single released on T-Neck Records, the label the Isleys set up to release their own music. At the time, the three Isley Brothers, O’Kelly, Rudolph, and Ronald, were living in Teaneck, New Jersey, a few miles outside the Bronx. They named their new label after their new hometown. But T-Neck didn’t last for long, with the brothers quickly bolting for Atlantic, Veep, and, finally, Berry Gordy’s Tamla.<br />
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Which should have been great, but the journeymen brothers never really clicked in Motown. Aside from one hit, the classic “This Old Heart of Mine,”* there was a string of middling successes. The Isleys felt like they weren’t getting the best songs that Motown had to offer. So they left, went back to T-Neck.**<br />
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In 1973, T-Neck inked a deal with Epic Records to distribute their music, a bit like the one Philadelphia International had with CBS. The Isleys now had the independence of being their own bosses, along with the public platform and national distribution a major could provide.<br />
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At the same time, the Isley Brothers officially added three new members: Ernie Isley, Marvin Isley and Chris Jasper (a brother-in-law of the Isleys). It was a pretty momentous change for a group that had been a trio since 1957. The three new members, and in particular Ernie and Chris, became the group's primary songwriters.<br />
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<a href="http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/38349487/The+Isley+Brothers+Isley+Brothers++picture2++bett.jpg"><img border="0" src="http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/38349487/The+Isley+Brothers+Isley+Brothers++picture2++bett.jpg" /></a><br />
<i>I made a Spotify playlist of these dudes' brilliant work. <a href="https://play.spotify.com/user/1213143487/playlist/5Kbd1R4ynElzbzhpe0oa6j">Check it out</a>.</i><br />
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And the new kids are all over “That Lady,” which they rewrote (<i>funkified</i> might be a better word). The older Isleys harnessed their energy, switching up their vocals into an intoxicating melange. The end result was magic--the best song on the very strong <i>3 + 3</i>. That title, by the way, referred to the three original Isleys adding three new members.<i><br /></i><br />
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The Isleys' new freedom and new members sparked a revolution in their sound. It’s a remarkable change for a group whose roots date back to gospel and doo wop. The Isleys had been around for so long by 1973 that it had been a decade since their “Twist and Shout” inspired the Beatles. The Fab Four were toast by '73, but the six Isleys were hanging tough.<br />
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R&B had its fair share of vets who rolled with the times, from geniuses like James Brown and Marvin Gaye to the Wilson Picketts and Joe Texes of the scene (who are <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8kah02eQIE" target="_blank">also</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip9-dnhiHmw" target="_blank">amazing</a>, don’t get me wrong). But even in that world, the Isleys' career is remarkable. They were a band, first of all, who kept up with the times by calling on their own family members. It didn't hurt that the new bandmembers were younger.</div>
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And, like Brown and Gaye, they found a way to pursue their vision without pesky label oversight. Owning their label allowed the brothers an artistic freedom most journeymen R&B acts never saw. Their vision wasn’t as radical as, say, Sly Stone's, which is perhaps why it’s overlooked today.*** That's no reason to ignore it.<br />
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My esteemed colleague first pointed me to their incredible run from 1973 to 1978, writing to me that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
the era between <i>3 + 3 </i>[1973] and <i>Showdown</i> [1978] constitutes one of the greatest six album runs in history. Seriously listen to all of these: <i>Live It Up, The Heat is On, Harvest for the World, Go For Your Guns, Showdown</i></blockquote>
He’s right. If you told me that a band wielded the sick funk of P-Funk, deep grooves of Stevie Wonder, and smoothness of the finest Yacht Rock****, I’d say that surely that band released blockbuster after blockbuster, and has earned its place among the soul celestials.<br />
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Not quite, but the Isley Brothers deserve it. I can't do justice to the range of their 70’s material, which runs the gamut from funk beasts to quaking quiet storm. There’s a sharpness to the way the older brothers’ vocals play off one another. Ronald Isley, <a href="http://mixonline.com/recording/interviews/audio_isley_brothers_lady/index.html" target="_blank">quite shy in real life</a>, is a commandingly soulful lead. Chris Jasper’s keyboards stomp, simmer and slice across these albums. And Ernie Isley is one of the great R&B guitarists, hands down. Listen to the way he tears up the back halves of "That Lady," "Who Loves You Better" and "Midnight Sky."<br />
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During their six-album run, the Isleys surrounded themselves with talented people. On the first four of these albums, they worked with engineers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff in LA. That team were early explorers of the synthesizer, and helped Stevie Wonder harness its power on his early 70's classics (Cecil would later work with Gil Scott-Heron). One of the wonderful things about the Isley's run is that they toyed with R&B's new sandbox in always ecstatic, often conventional songs. Chris Jasper wasn't the first dude to deploy swamps of clavinet on his jams, but damn if they don't sound good.<br />
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So do yourself a favor a get <i>3 +3</i>, <i>Live It Up, The Heat is On, Harvest for the World, Go For Your Guns, </i>and <i>Showdown. </i>A lot of these are easily found (and inexpensive) at used record stores. And if whoever owns the rights to these songs is reading this--you could certainly bring some attention to what NS rightfully calls "one of the greatest six album runs in history" with a box set. Give it the Harry Nilson <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Albums-Collection-Harry-Nilsson/dp/B00CJCHJ8S" target="_blank">treatment</a>.<br />
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Of course, one group has been light years ahead in keeping the legacy alive: hip-hop producers. Isley Brothers samples could sustain an entire series of blog posts, but suffice to say Public Enemy, Biggie, Salt-N-Pepa, De La Soul, Nas, Jay-Z, the Beastie Boys and OutKast have all rapped over Isleys samples. Personally, I love the way UGK flips "Ain't I Been Good To You" into the paranoid slow drip of "One Day." And DJ Pooh's repurposing of the paranoid "Footsteps In The Dark" into the ultimate cruising anthem, Ice Cube's "It Was A Good Day," is immortal.<br />
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R. Kelly deserves the gold star in terms of reppping the Isleys, having starred alongside Ron Isley <a href="http://www.mostlyjunkfood.com/the-r-kelly-mr-biggs-saga-one-of-the-greatest-soap-operas-of-all-time/" target="_blank">several times</a> in their Mr. Biggs song cycle. Isley plays Biggs in the songs and videos, who challenges the younger Kells for the affections of a lady. It's not "Who Loves You Better," but the songs are always fun.<br />
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It's a late career curio for the Isley Brothers. But these 70's albums are no curio, they're the vital work of R&B giants. Seek them out.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*I’m compelled to mention that Rod Stewart does an incredible cover of “This Old Heart of Mine” on <i>Atlantic Crossing</i> (with Booker T and the MGs behind him). Stewart and Ronald Isley would later hook up for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7gT3S_SRLk">a remarkably dated remake in 1990</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">**The pre-Epic T-Neck years (1969-1973) aren’t the focus here, but suffice to say that in this time period they did record <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sv3sMYEzAA">some classic shit</a> before going back to T-Neck.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">***But don't underestimate the way Ron Isley spits out <i>bullshit</i> in "Fight The Power." It caused problems for radio programmers, and was pretty rare for 1975. Asked why he swore--which surprised the rest of the band--Ron just said "because it needed to be said." "Power" was written by Ernie Isley the same day as the similarly political "Harvest For The World." And, for what it's worth, 1977's "Tell Me When You Need It Again" sounds like something from <i>Fresh</i>, and the bass on 1978's "Ain't Givin' Up No Love" is like a less drugged-out "Thank You For Talkin' To Me Africa."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">****The Isleys cover of "Summer Breeze" goes down so smooth, after its gently psyched-out intro, that British DJs <a href="http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2013-07/18/isley-brothers-summer-breeze-song" target="_blank">find themselves powerless before it</a> whenever the weather gets nice.</span></div>
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Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-49882326580310693942013-08-12T11:52:00.000-05:002013-08-12T11:52:02.998-05:00Christian RockaliserThis blog is not, no matter what <a href="https://twitter.com/LaughPartners" target="_blank">anyone</a> tells you, dead: I'm working on a post at the moment, and the monster project that has been cryptically alluded to on Twitter progresses slowly and steadily.<br />
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I'm not writing to defend the vitality of Rockaliser today--that should be an eternal given--but to point to <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/08/creation-festival-teen-christian-music-jesus?1" target="_blank">something I wrote elsewhere</a>:<br />
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<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/files/crowd630_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://www.motherjones.com/files/crowd630_0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Deep in central Pennsylvania, the roads are usually quiet, but today
Route 747 is gridlocked. Cars crawl towards the Agape Farm on Rapture
Street, which is tucked away in a small woodsy valley outside of Mt.
Union. Handwritten signs along the road read "Welcome Creation,"
beckoning each caravan toward a weekend of worship. Just past the
intersection of Hallelujah Highway and Glory Lane, the sound of "The
Star Spangled Banner"—performed by the band Audio Adrenaline—echoes
across hundreds of tents. Like the firing of a gun, it announces the
advent of Creation, America's largest Christian music festival.</i></blockquote>
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My friend and colleague <a href="http://alanalevinson.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Alana L.</a> and I went to a Christian Rock festival--the Pennsylvania-based Creation, which is America's largest--and <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/08/creation-festival-teen-christian-music-jesus?1" target="_blank">wrote about it for Mother Jones</a>. It was a pretty unique experience--a world away from the music that I usually write about--that I hope we captured adequately.<br />
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I can't say that I converted into a Christian Rock fan at the festival. And that's the last thing I'll be saying about the bands, as John Jeremiah Sullivan himself <a href="http://www.gq.com/entertainment/music/200401/rock-music-jesus" target="_blank">said</a> when he went to Creation (Sullivan, in fact, goes on to share several insightful thoughts about the bands). At the end of the day Creation is kind of just another summer music fest, albeit one with its own quirks and some very different aims from, say, Coachella. But you can just read the article, OK?Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-31273089032020257222013-04-08T09:33:00.000-05:002013-04-09T10:47:26.132-05:00From the Rockaliser Publicity Department<div>
We at Rockaliser like to occasionally share our accomplishments like most human beings, and last year we contributed a couple YA-level music history books to Lerner Publishing's American Music Milestones series. I wrote a history of <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/08/american-hip-hop-rappers-djs-and-hard.html">hip-hop</a>, while my esteemed colleague <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/08/american-r-gospel-grooves-funky.html">tackled soul and R&B</a>. A couple days ago, we learned that the book series was selected by <a href="http://www.booklistonline.com/Top-10-Series-Nonfiction-2013-Daniel-Kraus/pid=5948027">Booklist's Daniel Krauss</a> as one of the top 10 nonfiction series of the past 12 months. This is already after Booklist gave a <a href="http://www.booklistonline.com/American-R-B-Gospel-Grooves-Funky-Drummers-and-Soul-Power-Aaron-A-Mendelson/pid=5641597">glowing starred review </a>to <i>American R&B</i> a few months earlier. Very cool! We would love it if you considered buying these books online or requesting them at your local libraries.</div>
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<a href="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338769176l/13633623.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1338769176l/13633623.jpg" width="315" /></a></div>
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<i> <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/08/american-hip-hop-rappers-djs-and-hard.html">American Hip-Hop: Rappers, DJs, and Hard Beats</a></i><a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/08/american-hip-hop-rappers-djs-and-hard.html"> by Nathan Sacks</a> (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Hip-Hop-Rappers-Beats-Milestones/dp/0761345000">Amazon page</a>)</div>
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<a href="https://www.lernerbooks.com/digitalassets/Assets/Title%20Assets/10458/9780761345015/9780761345015fc_XLarge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://www.lernerbooks.com/digitalassets/Assets/Title%20Assets/10458/9780761345015/9780761345015fc_XLarge.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/08/american-r-gospel-grooves-funky.html"><i>American R&B: Gospel Grooves, Funky Drummers, and Soul Power</i> by Aaron Mendelson</a> (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Gospel-Grooves-Drummers-Milestones/dp/product-description/0761345019/ref=dp_proddesc_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books">Amazon page</a>)</div>
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The other authors involved in the series, by the way, were Lloyd Sachs, Arie Kaplan, Matt Doeden and Erik Farseth. Big ups to Greg Hunter, a great editor and buddy who shared our passion for the music and for conveying its importance in an accessible manner. On a completely unrelated note, check out this <a href="http://sphotos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/64808_640408229802_378842484_n.jpg">crazy album cover</a>.</div>
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The next item is that my esteemed colleague's post on <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2010/12/eric-claptons-evil-speech.html">Eric Clapton's racism</a> is again seeing a lot of traffic, after being linked to by Gawker last year for a reason I no longer remember. The blog Dangerous Minds also wrote an <a href="http://dangerousminds.net/comments/eric_claptons_disgusting_racist_tirade">article</a> on a similar topic not long ago. If you're new to the blog and would like to see more, <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2011/02/rockaliser-at-100.html">here are a few of our favorite pieces</a> (<a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/12/beyond-maggot-brain-eddie-hazels-other.html">plus </a><a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/02/beatles-and-r.html">a</a> <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/03/rock-taxes-treasury-of-whiny-rich.html">few</a> <a href="http://rockaliser.blogspot.com/2012/04/levon-helm-1940-2012-tribute-to.html">more</a>).<br />
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Finally, service on the blog has been somewhat quiet (at least on my end), but that will change, as we are again working on a lengthy summer series of posts that may dwarf last year's Rockaliser 30 in terms of ambition and moxie (if not in word count). Your Rockaliser writers are going to continue to branch out, so watch this space for more good writing in the future.</div>
Nathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12390942478204415875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-56799978861888425262013-04-04T23:40:00.002-05:002013-04-04T23:44:05.101-05:00RIP Roger EbertThe great film critic Roger Ebert died today, at age 70. Suffice to say, it's a sad day here at Rockaliser. Nathan and Aaron both wrote remembrances of the man:<br />
<blockquote>
I credit him for showing me the potential of film as a medium, and my gratitude for the love of film he instilled in me will always be immense.</blockquote>
<a href="http://nathandogg.tumblr.com/post/47144522567/rip-roger-ebert-critic-in-excelsis" target="_blank">From Nathan's Tumblr</a><br />
<blockquote>
i’ve hated a lot of films ebert liked, and love a bunch of films he hated. but his criticism was so earnest and deeply considered that it was worth grappling with, always.</blockquote>
<a href="http://i’ve hated a lot of films ebert liked, and love a bunch of films he hated. but his criticism was so earnest and deeply considered that was worthy grappling with, always." target="_blank">From Aaron's Tumblr </a>Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20443115207766610.post-39977842543060196472013-03-10T17:13:00.001-05:002013-03-10T17:13:55.558-05:00Slumberland Stories: More From Mike Schulman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A little while back, I made a radio piece about Slumberland
Records, the legendary indie-pop label that’s located in Oakland, CA. Sort of
located in Oakland, I should say—label honcho Mike Schulman currently operates
out of a couple rooms in West Berkeley. He’s got an office set up in one, and a
“warehousey space” in the other, where he keeps inventory and runs
Slumberland’s mail order.<br />
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The original story was on <a href="http://oaklandnorth.net/2012/12/27/oaklands-independent-slumberland-records-label-fuses-pop-and-noise/" target="_blank">Oakland North</a>, may eventually appear elsewhere. Schulman was very generous with his time, and spoke about
a lot of interesting things that didn’t find a place in the radio story. I wanted
to share a few of those here.</div>
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<b>On how his band, Black Tambourine, got its start</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s kind of a non-history. When we started the label, it was originally 7 or 8 people. We all pitched in work-wise and a little bit money-wise to put out he first handful of records. A few of us had picked up instruments before, but for the most part we were really beginners. We were really into punk rock and we were really into Lower East Side noise stuff like the Unsane and Sonic Youth and the Swans. But we were into pop and we were into Dada and we were into John Cage.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We just thought, let’s try this, let’s start some bands. Most of the bands were noise bands or kind of improv, and some of us wanted to make pop music. So Black Tambourine was a side project of really of a couple of the bands, for the songs that didn’t really fit in with the other bands because they were just a little too melodic.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Our singer [Pam Berry] actually lived in England, and she was just somebody we knew. We didn’t know she could sing, but she liked the right records and she was a friend of ours. So we just thought “we’ll have her sing.” We sent her some demo tapes and she said, “OK, I’ll figure some songs out.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://stwp.selftitledmagazi.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Black+Tambourine+BT3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="http://stwp.selftitledmagazi.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Black+Tambourine+BT3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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We did a handful of shows, four or five shows, put out a couple of singles, and then it sort of… It didn’t really fizzle out, but two of the guys were in Velocity Girl and they had just signed to Sub Pop, and they were busy. Then I moved away. So it kind of ended in late 91, early 92.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The single we put out was reasonably successful, it’s not like nobody ever heard it. But there was just some weird afterlife with the band, people always seemed to respond to those recordings.<br />
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<b>On big moments in Slumberland's history</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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We’ve had some really great milestones. We put out the first
Stereolab album in the U.S. And, you know, they went on to some amount of fame
and repute, that was pretty exciting to be able to help them with that in some
small way.<o:p></o:p></div>
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A couple bands—Velocity Girl and the Lilys—who went on to be
better known, started out with us. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who are
fairly well-known now, they’re still on Slumberland. That was a big milestone
for us when we put that album out. To have a record that sold, to the point
that people who don’t follow that kind of music will have heard it. That’s
pretty exciting.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We had our 20<sup>th</sup> anniversary in 2009, and we did
some shows on the East Coast and West Coast, and got some of the old bands to reform.
It was just amazing to see some of that history laid out. And especially the
San Francisco show, because I’ve been out here the most amount of time, people
came out here who I haven’t seen at a show in ten years! It was really
thrilling to have the old and the new bands together, they’re all fans of each
other, and everyone was hi-fiving and hugging.</div>
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<b>On what explains the label’s recent
successes</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart! [Laughs] I mean, not
totally, but there was kind of an interregnum between 2003 and 2006 where I
didn’t really put out any new records. And I think there was something about
going away and coming back, even though it was just for a few years. I was still
filling mail orders, it’s not like we shut down, we just didn’t put out any new
releases.<o:p></o:p></div>
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There were a lot of bands who were kind of bubbling under
who were influenced by the stuff we did in the 90s, the bands that we had put
out. They were either bands who were
directly inspired by them or at least conversant with it. When I started
putting new stuff out again, I kind of found the Pains and Crystal Stilts and
Cause Co-Motion! This group of Brooklyn bands—they didn’t sound like what we
had done before, but they knew about it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As it happened, the Brooklyn thing was kind of blowing up,
and some of those bands got to be reasonably well-known. It was just good
timing, I think.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I had a different outlook on promotion and radio and that
kind of thing [before]. Back in the 90s when I would put a record out I would
think “Fuck it. These are really good records and I shouldn’t need to pay some
press guy a couple thousand dollars to go around and tell people how good they
are. And I should have to mail out 800 free CDs, that most of them are just
going to get sold used.” I was just very suspicious of the machinery of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When I started putting out new releases again, especially
full-lengths, I felt it is a crowded market, maybe I should do the best I can
to get people to hear the music. If that means spending out promos then I’ll
send out promos.</div>
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<b>On the economics of independent music<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I hate to make it sound like it’s all about money, but at
some point <i>something</i> has to earn
back. You can’t lose money on every release and keep going. It’s hard now, it’s
difficult.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The bottom line, I think, is that the finances of running a
label are not going to get any easier. There’s going to be a day when you can
go back to that physical artifact that you could make a 200% markup on. It’s
just not there. There’s a lot of different pieces that you can put together,
with sync licensing for TV or merch. But it’s hard for me to picture where it’s
all heading.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>On agression, masculinity and femininity in music</b></div>
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<i>It seems like a lot of
the indie labels that were around then [in the late 80's] were more aggressive, more
male-dominated. It doesn’t seem like there were a lot of women managing the
labels</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Not at that exact time, not a lot that I can think of. Over
the next five years--with Bettina Gregory and Thrill Jockey and Mac and Laura
doing Merge, Simple Machines started when we were starting, and that was
obviously very female friendly, and K always had female involvement, for sure,
and they were hugely inspirational to us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Musically, our early records were pretty noisy and they were
pretty agro, but we got poppy pretty quickly. The character of the releases
changed. And most, a lot of the prevailing indie-rock of the 90’s was possibly
more aggressive or noisier in a different way, like just less melodic. I don’t
really know how to describe it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I feel like our stuff is different, for sure. I don’t know
if it’s like a masculine/feminine thing. If we were talking about indie-pop
then there’s definitely an aspect of that. Indie-pop as a genre—which we’re
associated with but I don’t think of us as an indie-pop label—that’s an
aggressively anti-masculine or non-masculine or [laughs]. A not-afraid-to-be-feminine kind of genre.</div>
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<b>On getting demos<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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It’s a source of great guilt for me. I’d like to say that I
listen to every single one the minute I get it but it’s just not possible.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The
success of the Pains kind of influenced some of the demos I get, I think. And
it’s not so much bands that sound like them, but the idea that we have a fairly
successful record beyond what we normally have, kind of attracted a certain
class of band that wants to make music their career in a way that I find really
distasteful. I don’t know how to describe it!<o:p></o:p></div>
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It’s kind
of post-emo dudes, who kind of like making noisy pop. You see it and you know
it, it’s like pornography or something. There’s something a little gross about
it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We get a
lot of that stuff. Like, super aggressive managers that will somehow get my
cell phone number and be like “Dude! You gotta listen to blah blah blahs demo
and this is gonna blow your label up!” I just, I can’t deal with that kind of stuff.
Usually if a band says they’re going to make your label famous, that's pretty
much a red flag.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Aaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17389566303984348920noreply@blogger.com0