Quote
Elmo Lewis
Re: Bill Graham and Mick

The way I read it was that Graham promised each band member $16 million for the Steel Wheel tour. Cohl $18 million. Graham asked Jagger what was the difference between $16M and $18M (inferring that loyalty was worth something). Mick replied $2 million dollars. Anybody else heard/read this version?

I thought it was more than that. Like 5 mill. A million dollars a man.

"It's just some friends of mine and they're busting down the door"

Hey Helter, you're a darned good QUICKIE REVIEWER!
Does the book give the reader a sense of:

each band members loves, hates, pleasures, favorite music, actual friends, relationship to their families. Do we get a sense that he had actual one on one conversations with each Stone where they truly communicated? Where Bill German could express his own thoughts,ask questions, interact. For an hour or more.

Is it a full-fledged definitive book? Or more of a long magazine article?

Oh, I forgot to add but if I'm not wrong, IMHO, THE STEEL WHEELS/URBAN JUNGLE TOUR was probably the beginnings of the Mega - Priced Concert ticket, from the Stones to the Eagles to almost everybody else SW/UJ may have been where it all started, let me know if I'm wrong or right on this theory.......

Elmo's quote sounds about right to me also.....

Quote
stonesrule
Hey Helter, you're a darned good QUICKIE REVIEWER!
Does the book give the reader a sense of:

each band members loves, hates, pleasures, favorite music, actual friends, relationship to their families. Do we get a sense that he had actual one on one conversations with each Stone where they truly communicated? Where Bill German could express his own thoughts,ask questions, interact. For an hour or more.

Is it a full-fledged definitive book? Or more of a long magazine article?

You definitely get the most depth when it comes to RONNIE and KEITH. MICK gets his moments (when he's being interviewed about UNDERCOVER by BG in his West Side 5th floor study and puts the entire album on while he dances around the room as Bill drinks and spills some OJ on a rare rug) there's a lot of interesting details there that I've left out....No magazine article here, a great book for true Stones fans

It just makes me wonder - how many shows do family members - at least back then - actually attend? I would think not many.

2 million dollars. Ha ha. I've read that. Mick's right.

Quote
HelterSkelter
Oh, I forgot to add but if I'm not wrong, IMHO, THE STEEL WHEELS/URBAN JUNGLE TOUR was probably the beginnings of the Mega - Priced Concert ticket, from the Stones to the Eagles to almost everybody else SW/UJ may have been where it all started, let me know if I'm wrong or right on this theory.......

Elmo's quote sounds about right to me also.....

re: "big" ticket prices

it's all relative of course....but i seem to remember that the
Jackson reunion tour after MJ's Thriller etc... had a whopping
price of $36 (or more??) in mid '80s. i think that was the highest
price to date...back then. ?? And then a few yrs later...Steel Wheels
tix were approx $35 i think. But generally i think you are correct that
the mega classic rock bands (eagles, stones etc...) took it into the $100+ range
a few years later.


IORR............but I like it!

Beyond the dirt-dishing, did you get the sense that the writer felt prileged to see this personal side of Mick dancing and opening up about the music? One on One.

A lot of people would consider this one of the highlights of their life.

What concerns me is that I want to really like this book but I guess I wonder if it's written from the point of view of the kid that Bill German was or from the motivation of the 40 something man that he is now.

I can understand why so many posters are excited and eager to read the book as they were about Ronnie's. I'm gonna save my dough for Keith's book because as erratic as he can be, he is also literate and a straight shooter. He has a sense of honor so I would doubt there'll be be all this Mick versus Keith stuff that we have been reading about for years. Think about several of the ABB gigs where spontaneous real feeling was seen between Mick and Keith.

"he seems to NEED acceptance from the present generation much more than the rest of the band"
The Peter Pan syndrome in other words...

the problem I have with such books is, that they are very subjective. There is not something like "the truth" out there, only opinions.

Quote
elunsi
the problem I have with such books is, that they are very subjective. There is not something like "the truth" out there, only opinions.

I think you're looking at this for something more than it is. This is not an expose. These are the opinions of someone who has had first-hand contact with The Stones and not just as someone doing a scheduled interview.

I actually think it's somewhat brave of him to include the negative stories. As someone who spent many years writing about the RSs as their main source of income, you would think that would be a bridge he would not want to burn. I didn't read the "where is he now" part of the book yet, but i believe he was still someone involved with the RS via radio as of a few years ago.

Anyway - I don't think you will ever be able to know "the truth" about somebody, even if you know them well. People in general have many different sides, and react differently depending upon the situation/mood etc. Even Mick Jagger would not be able to give you the full truth about who Mick Jagger is. Therefore, hearing personal accounts is helpful in giving you an idea of what the person is really like when they're not "on" for the cameras.

True Cindy .... Well put ......Take a bow.



ROCKMAN

When you read all the books, talk to lots of people, go to lots of shows and use all the knowledge you get then you will get a pretty good picture. Every book is very welcome, and in particular this one by Bill G.

Bjornulf

Quote
CindyC
I actually think it's somewhat brave of him to include the negative stories. As someone who spent many years writing about the RSs as their main source of income, you would think that would be a bridge he would not want to burn.

the bridges were burned many years ago, obviously. he had nothing to lo$e....

in other words - no bridges, he's free to babble on



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-02-26 23:33 by T&A.

Thanks for your quickie review

Quote
T&A
the bridges were burned many years ago, obviously. he had nothing to lo$e....

in other words - no bridges, he's free to babble on

How do you know?


Thanks Rockman!!!!

Quote
CindyC

Quote
T&A
the bridges were burned many years ago, obviously. he had nothing to lo$e....

in other words - no bridges, he's free to babble on

How do you know?

because you don't write a tell-all book unless you have nothing to lose. especially with guys with images and egos like this that need constant feeding and protection.

it was pretty obvious from talking to bill a few years ago that he wasn't talking to these guys anymore....even back then it was obvious he was going to take the opportunity to cash in his experience....

The Eagles "Hell Freezes Over" tour was my first $100 tickets.

Thanks Angee. How did your report come out?


Back to T&A, I still think it was brave of him to write the bad stuff. It didn't do Spanish Tony any good, he's not exactly enjoying the fruits of his "cashing in".

Quote
CindyC
Thanks Angee. How did your report come out?


Back to T&A, I still think it was brave of him to write the bad stuff. It didn't do Spanish Tony any good, he's not exactly enjoying the fruits of his "cashing in".

not having read bill's book - and i probably won't - i'm not imagining bill has any real vendetta nor axe to grind here. it's his one opportunity to take a life experience that would be interesting enough to write about and make some bucks. no harm, no foul. something most any of us would do in a similar circumstance.

not really on a par with the whole tony deal....

You don't have to have a vendetta against someone to piss them off. The story in the exerpt(sp?) where he talks about how Mick was speaking to him in Ronnie's basement wasn't exactly flattering. I'd be pissed if I were Mick. Not that he'd want him dead over that, but still.

Cindy C, I'm still working on it, thanks.

Good point, T & A.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-02-27 00:55 by angee.

Quote
CindyC
You don't have to have a vendetta against someone to piss them off. The story in the exerpt(sp?) where he talks about how Mick was speaking to him in Ronnie's basement wasn't exactly flattering. I'd be pissed if I were Mick. Not that he'd want him dead over that, but still.

well, if Bill winds up floating in the east river, you and i will both know it's mick's fault.

i get yer point. but, i just don't see it as bravery, per se. i see it as a calculated gamble with a much higher reward than risk proposition.

always thought mick was a bit stingy, but these stories confrm it, MICK IS CHEAP!!!!!!!!!

Quote
elunsi
the problem I have with such books is, that they are very subjective. There is not something like "the truth" out there, only opinions.

Other than Math & Science textbooks....it's pretty difficult to
find a book that is completely objective.

Of course this type of book is going to be subjective.
How is that a "problem"?


IORR............but I like it!

Quote
T&A
[

not having read bill's book - and i probably won't

well...then i guess you'll continue to guess at the content of this book...stating
things with certainty and no qualifiers. When I speculate, I try to make
a point of saying so.....easiest way is IMO (in my opinion).


IORR............but I like it!

Quote
sweet neo con

Quote
T&A
[

not having read bill's book - and i probably won't

well...then i guess you'll continue to guess at the content of this book...stating
things with certainty and no qualifiers. When I speculate, I try to make
a point of saying so.....easiest way is IMO (in my opinion).

i speculate you're right. some of the content/highlights have already been discussed. and it's reasonable to assume the stories bill's been telling in public for many years are the basis for the book.

i stated things with certainty? let me qualify that i certainly didn't intend to...

Rolling Stones fan shines a light on dark decade-
Thu Feb 26, 2009 4:06pm EST


By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If rock bands have male groupies, Bill German was Exhibit No. 1.

The Rolling Stones fanatic was so devoted to his idols that he passed up the opportunity to lose his virginity to the hottest girl in high school in order to race to a record store and snap up a rare bootleg album.

A little later, he dropped out of college and rented a cockroach-infested apartment in Manhattan where he had to share a bed with a male roommate. It was a small price to pay for living in the same borough as the group's key members.

By then, 1983, German was 20 and had been publishing his authoritative fanzine Beggars Banquet for almost five years, spending every waking moment digging up scoops.

Stones guitarists Keith Richards and Ron Wood warmed to the eager fan, making him a rare outsider in the band's inner circle of obsequious courtiers, celebrities, drug-dealers and honky tonk women. Even singer Mick Jagger was nice to him sometimes, despite fighting a civil war with Richards.

The hangers-on often "wind up leaving the Stones circle in caskets or handcuffs because they think that they can keep up with them on a nightly basis and that they're really a part of it," German, now 46, said in a recent interview.

Through a combination of luck, diplomacy and good old-fashioned journalistic instincts, German survived. He offers a rare glimpse of the Stones' ruthless business practices, rampant drug abuse, internecine fighting and enduring musical camaraderie in his memoir "Under Their Thumb -- How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with The Rolling Stones (and Lived to tell About It)." It came out this week through Random House.

"ALMOST FAMOUS" AGAIN

There are some parallels with filmmaker Cameron Crowe. As a teen reporter for Rolling Stone magazine during the 1970s, Crowe lived every kid's fantasy of touring with Led Zeppelin, another hell raising band wary of outsiders. He dramatized his exploits in the Oscar-winning 2000 movie "Almost Famous."

German said his book had been in the works since 1996, when he wearily closed Beggars Banquet, but Crowe's film motivated him to kick-start the project into a higher gear.

The drug-fueled narrative focuses on the 1980s, a decade-long mid-life crisis for the Stones. Jagger and Richards, buddies since grade school, spent much of that time feuding publicly. Richards was upset that Jagger had recorded a solo album, and threatened to slit his throat if he toured without the Stones. Things went downhill from there.

"To be in a room with them at the same time, from '85 to early '89, it was pretty tense," German said. "You knew that you just had to be a fly on the wall. You could not try to broker some kind of ceasefire between them. You couldn't even make a joke in the room, because who the hell are you? Especially me."

At one stage, Richards and Wood invited him to attend all-night sessions for the Stones' 1986 album "Dirty Work," but only if "Brenda" was not around. That was the duo's scathing nickname for their singer.

German often hung out at the members' homes, once spilling orange juice at Jagger's place and watching incredulously as his hero got on his hands and knees to clean it up. Richards grew jealous of German's friendship with the gregarious Wood, and demanded that German spend more time with him. All the while, German was carefully taking notes.

"If Keith said something to me for print, he knew that Mick was going to read it, and vice-versa," German said. "In some ways they used me, in a sense, to communicate with each other."
When peace broke out and the Stones launched a tour in 1989, German tagged along, securing prized perches that fans could only dream about. But the devil took his due.

"For other people going to the concert was a hundred percent enjoyment. For me there were points when it was a day at the office," German said.

More to the point, German had no personal life, no money and no prospects. The pressures of his fanzine, his nutty subscribers and the Stones' paranoid handlers almost drove him to suicide. He discusses his downward spiral and eventual exit from the Stones circle in the book, but laces it with humor.

"One of the many reasons I got out is because so many people around the Stones do not have that sense of humor," he said. "They take it so seriously. Even at a young age I knew we're not curing cancer here."

A younger version of German would be aghast to learn that he has seen the Stones only a handful of times on their past few tours. Instead, German got a life and a girlfriend.

He lost contact with his famous pals years ago, and can finally listen to their records as a regular fan. He has plenty of material for more books, but they are more likely to be about other crazy people in his life.

"As large a presence as the Stones are and have been in my life, I have these other characters who are not as famous but just as large," he said.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant)



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

Quote
sweet neo con
Other than Math & Science textbooks....it's pretty difficult to
find a book that is completely objective.

Of course this type of book is going to be subjective.
How is that a "problem"?

you are right. We all know, that it is all subjective.
I just think, that we are sometimes a bit quick in making facts out of somebody´s opinion.

re "Retards...": Nothing really surprising in this book tho a good read...More details welcpme & entertaining (or sad) but in terms of the RS as persons, no real news & well as me and others have many times said who says great artists have to be nice warm open emotionally healthy people??? Some are, some really great ones aint. I'd like to have lunch w/ Shepard Fairley (sp), he was chatty w/ me but his 'art' is dull to me. Picasso was a bastard on the udder hand. Bruuuce is great w/ his fans on the ticket co ripoffs, frinstance, but much of his work including the new one bores me. BTW Miles Davis could be a real p**ck too....regarding the song royalties issue say. And Charlie tho friends w Mick & Keith & integral etc was just never in NY those dark days...