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Redhotcarpet
I also believe that Keiths opinions on Brian are pointless if you dont know the context. I dont think he knew Brian that well, I'm sure he observed him and Brians different goals in life just like he observed the stable Mick. Keith is working class. That mattered in London in the 60s. His only goal in life was to play guitar, have a dog and a girl and heroin to numb out memories of the pets his mum killed. Very punk if you ask me.
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Doxa
It is sad - it is supposed to sound sad but I think it also sounds sad for not intended reason.
- Doxa
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His MajestyQuote
Doxa
It is sad - it is supposed to sound sad but I think it also sounds sad for not intended reason.
- Doxa
It's an expression of sad and messed up feelings via what is actually quite a simple part to play, that was one of Brain's gifts, not that many people have that ability... Most play overly complicated and wanky.
His playing on No Expectations is as good if not better than any of his other celebrated contributions. For sure the fragility and sadness of his situation is in his playing and that what you hear and feel when listening was very much the intended outcome.
A wonderful example of a transfering of feeling from the player to the listener.
I'm pretty convinced that Brian had some sort of a personality disorder based on what I've read about him and if I'm right (who knows?) it would explain a lot of the things he did. The inability to handle constant stress, the insecurity, the obsession with music itself and not understanding social codes with other people all fit in together. It would also had been something that would have gotten worse "untreated" and because of his loveless upbringing and the heavy amount of drugs he took.Quote
mickschix
On one hand, he was the founder of the band, the one who at first helped form their unique sound. On the other hand, he seemed to not be able to handle the fame, the women, and the limitations that he recognized in his own abilities. Yes, he was stressed but I never was able to excuse his horrible behavior. He spun out of control and I had little sympathy because he was no longer likeable as a human being. I sided with Mick and Keith who must have been confliced about how to handle the situation.
It all comes down to Anita.Quote
Redhotcarpet
I also believe that Keiths opinions on Brian are pointless if you dont know the context.
We are used to it.Quote
Stoneage
I think this thread is going nowhere now. The only thing it does is annoying the Brian fans. What is the point with that?
Spot on!Quote
His Majesty
It's an expression of sad and messed up feelings via what is actually quite a simple part to play, that was one of Brain's gifts, not that many people have that ability... Most play overly complicated and wanky.
His playing on No Expectations is as good if not better than any of his other celebrated contributions. For sure the fragility and sadness of his situation is in his playing and that what you hear and feel when listening was very much the intended outcome.
A wonderful example of a transfering of feeling from the player to the listener.
Strange. Marianne is often one of those who defend Brian. Anyway, to be fair Anita used to beat up Brian too according to some sources. One time with a phone receiver! They didn't exactly have a nice relationship. It doesn't excuse Jones of course, but I don't understand why Anita often is portrayed like some helpless damsel in distress and not like the manipulative bitch she was? Maybe it's because she's still alive? Keith could somewhat handle her - Brian was no match.Quote
proudmary
Q&A: Marianne Faithfull On Her Critics, Her Voice, And The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones
Do you have any fond memories of Brian?
No.
No?
No! He used to beat up Anita [Pallenberg, who was one of Faithfull's best friends as well as Jones' girlfriend and later Keith Richards']. Of course I don't. No.
Strange. Marianne is often one of those who defend Brian. Anyway, to be fair Anita used to beat up Brian too according to some sources. One time with a phone receiver! They didn't exactly have a nice relationship. It doesn't excuse Jones of course, but I don't understand why Anita often is portrayed like some helpless damsel in distress and not like the manipulative bitch she was? Maybe it's because she's still alive? Keith could somewhat handle her - Brian was no match.[/quote]Quote
proudmary
Q&A: Marianne Faithfull On Her Critics, Her Voice, And The Rolling Stones' Brian Jones
Do you have any fond memories of Brian?
No.
No?
No! He used to beat up Anita [Pallenberg, who was one of Faithfull's best friends as well as Jones' girlfriend and later Keith Richards']. Of course I don't. No.
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DoxaQuote
DandelionPowderman
Yeah, I really like No Expectations, but I like Love In Vain even more - the slide work, too. So Keith could have done NE by himself, imo.
Personally I think that the slide of "No Expectations" is praised a bit too much, i.e. is over-rated. Don't get me wrong: it is great, haunting, effective and suits perfectly to the mood of the song as Brian's best contributions always do - but since it is the last track and it is especially guitar track where Brian can be actually heard contributing efficiently people seem to read a bit too much on it. But if it didn't have that dramatical "Brain for the very last time" aura in it, I don't think it would be talked so much. It is basically a fragile, simple slide piece, nothing more, nothing less. When I listen to it, my mind goes: "is this shakey, fragile slide playing all there is left of this wonderful talent who once conquered about half of the instruments of the world and made unforgettable results?". It is sad - it is supposed to sound sad but I think it also sounds sad for not intended reason.
- Doxa
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neptuneQuote
Redhotcarpet
I also believe that Keiths opinions on Brian are pointless if you dont know the context. I dont think he knew Brian that well, I'm sure he observed him and Brians different goals in life just like he observed the stable Mick. Keith is working class. That mattered in London in the 60s. His only goal in life was to play guitar, have a dog and a girl and heroin to numb out memories of the pets his mum killed. Very punk if you ask me.
Very interesting insight. Keith has often referred to Brian as a 'ponce' and Mick as a 'she'. Does this stem from his resentment against those coming from more privaleged backgrounds?
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Redhotcarpet
High tide green grass is one of the best album covers ever made. you watch that one guy who stands out, who is magnetic, even for a straight guy like me or Mick, Keith or Jim Morrisson, and that is the guy with the perfect hair, clothes, that look in his eyes and the broken hand.
Why else does Brian stand out in the High Tide cover? Those loud red pants!
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His Majesty
It's an expression of sad and messed up feelings via what is actually quite a simple part to play, that was one of Brain's gifts, not that many people have that ability... Most play overly complicated and wanky.
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tonterapi
I'm pretty convinced that Brian had some sort of a personality disorder based on what I've read about him and if I'm right (who knows?) it would explain a lot of the things he did.
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Mathijs
Brian just couldn't cope with the fame and success, with the drugs and money, and with the competition to what would turn out one of the most succesful writing partners in history of pop music. He simply was a victim of his own success, like so many musicians who didn't survive.
Mathijs
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Redhotcarpet
The scan has an interesting comment about Keiths image, thats why I posted it.
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flacnvinyl
If you couldn't find a thread, you should start a new one. I don't think Keith EVER became the Brian of the band. Did he beat women on a regular basis and cry while great bands performed at Rock'nRoll Circus..? Oh wait, that was Brian Jones.
Keith's playing deteriorated quickly over the past decade, but he still plays beautiful music.
Ronnie is by far the single most underrated guitarist in rocknroll history. My favorite part of Brown Sugar is the last 2 minutes where Ronnie plays that beautiful 'plinking'.
And let me be VERY clear about this... IF RONNIE WERE TURNED UP IN THE HOUSE SOUND MIXES WE WOULD NOT BE HAVING THIS DEBATE.
Ronnie has ALWAYS been put at 50-60% the volume of Keith, especially from the 80s on. My thought is that Keith doesn't want to be shown up. They need to be at the same level and we'd see/hear a much more powerful band!
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His Majesty
You don't half talk a lot of shite.
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lem motlow
its not even possible for brian to be "overrated" because nothing you could possibly say could be good enough to pay tribute to the great brian jones.
brian jones invented the band that is the basis for this website.
no matter what that whining little bitch keith richards says about what a "mean guy" he was or how "difficult" he was the fact remains-
brian jones created the rolling stones
next question.
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Title5Take1
I read the book mentioned in the post above (and whose book cover is below) and it was very eye-opening and worth reading.
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Below is a wonderful essay from NY TIMES Columnist David Brooks on "Genius: The Modern View"
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Some people live in romantic ages. They tend to believe that genius is the product of a divine spark. They believe that there have been, throughout the ages, certain paragons of greatness — Dante, Mozart, Einstein — whose talents far exceeded normal comprehension, who had an other-worldly access to transcendent truth, and who are best approached with reverential awe
The foundational literary principle is decorum, which means something like the opposite of its dictionary definition: "behaviour in keeping with good taste and propriety" (i.e., submission to an ovine consensus). In literature, decorum means the concurrence of style and content – together with a third element, which I can only vaguely express as earning the right weight.
We, of course, live in a scientific age, and modern research pierces hocus-pocus. In the view that is now dominant, even Mozart’s early abilities were not the product of some innate spiritual gift. His early compositions were nothing special. They were pastiches of other people’s work. Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among today’s top child-performers.
What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had — the ability to focus for long periods of time and a father intent on improving his skills. Mozart played a lot of piano at a very young age, so he got his 10,000 hours of practice in early and then he built from there.
The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.
The recent research has been conducted by people like K. Anders Ericsson, the late Benjamin Bloom and others. It’s been summarized in two enjoyable new books: “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle; and “Talent Is Overrated” by Geoff Colvin.
If you wanted to picture how a typical genius might develop, you’d take a girl who possessed a slightly above average verbal ability. It wouldn’t have to be a big talent, just enough so that she might gain some sense of distinction. Then you would want her to meet, say, a novelist, who coincidentally shared some similar biographical traits. Maybe the writer was from the same town, had the same ethnic background, or, shared the same birthday — anything to create a sense of affinity.
This contact would give the girl a vision of her future self. It would, Coyle emphasizes, give her a glimpse of an enchanted circle she might someday join. It would also help if one of her parents died when she was 12, infusing her with a profound sense of insecurity and fueling a desperate need for success.
Armed with this ambition, she would read novels and literary biographies without end. This would give her a core knowledge of her field. She’d be able to chunk Victorian novelists into one group, Magical Realists in another group and Renaissance poets into another. This ability to place information into patterns, or chunks, vastly improves memory skills. She’d be able to see new writing in deeper ways and quickly perceive its inner workings.
Then she would practice writing. Her practice would be slow, painstaking and error-focused. According to Colvin, Ben Franklin would take essays from The Spectator magazine and translate them into verse. Then he’d translate his verse back into prose and examine, sentence by sentence, where his essay was inferior to The Spectator’s original.
Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. (Try to slow down your golf swing so it takes 90 seconds to finish. See how many errors you detect.)
By practicing in this way, performers delay the automatizing process. The mind wants to turn deliberate, newly learned skills into unconscious, automatically performed skills. But the mind is sloppy and will settle for good enough. By practicing slowly, by breaking skills down into tiny parts and repeating, the strenuous student forces the brain to internalize a better pattern of performance.
Then our young writer would find a mentor who would provide a constant stream of feedback, viewing her performance from the outside, correcting the smallest errors, pushing her to take on tougher challenges. By now she is redoing problems — how do I get characters into a room — dozens and dozens of times. She is ingraining habits of thought she can call upon in order to understand or solve future problems.
The primary trait she possesses is not some mysterious genius. It’s the ability to develop a deliberate, strenuous and boring practice routine.
Coyle and Colvin describe dozens of experiments fleshing out this process. This research takes some of the magic out of great achievement. But it underlines a fact that is often neglected. Public discussion is smitten by genetics and what we’re “hard-wired” to do. And it’s true that genes place a leash on our capacities. But the brain is also phenomenally plastic. We construct ourselves through behavior. As Coyle observes, it’s not who you are, it’s what you do
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Coyle describes a tennis academy in Russia where they enact rallies without a ball. The aim is to focus meticulously on technique. (Try to slow down your golf swing so it takes 90 seconds to finish. See how many errors you detect.)
By practicing in this way, performers delay the automatizing process.
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SweetThing
But yes, anyone with a serious interest should be well past the point of looking to Richards as a source for Brian Jones' place in Rolling Stones history - literally decades of verbal Diarrhea from Keith, monsoons really, now flood the landscape... Jagger screwing up the band bringing in disco influences, Mick Taylor ruining the band, Billy Preston ruining the band, etc. Ronnie Wood recounts the time he brought a saxophone into the studio and Keith went into an irrational rage. It's actually gotten to such an extreme point you have to ignore half of Richards' statements. Very unfortunate, because Keith is obviously a "primary" source. Yet his credibility sinks with each passing year.
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Doxa
It is sad - it is supposed to sound sad but I think it also sounds sad for not intended reason.
- Doxa
It's an expression of sad and messed up feelings via what is actually quite a simple part to play, that was one of Brain's gifts, not that many people have that ability... Most play overly complicated and wanky.
His playing on No Expectations is as good if not better than any of his other celebrated contributions. For sure the fragility and sadness of his situation is in his playing and that what you hear and feel when listening was very much the intended outcome.
A wonderful example of a transfering of feeling from the player to the listener.
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
His MajestyQuote
Doxa
It is sad - it is supposed to sound sad but I think it also sounds sad for not intended reason.
- Doxa
It's an expression of sad and messed up feelings via what is actually quite a simple part to play, that was one of Brain's gifts, not that many people have that ability... Most play overly complicated and wanky.
His playing on No Expectations is as good if not better than any of his other celebrated contributions. For sure the fragility and sadness of his situation is in his playing and that what you hear and feel when listening was very much the intended outcome.
A wonderful example of a transfering of feeling from the player to the listener.
Add Nick Drake to the list of musicians with that ability.
Although Brian is said to have been on his way to get a new band together after his departure I believe that he would have ended up as a producer. You say it nice: "Brian adding music and tunes to a Nick Drake type of songwriter" - a producer more than an artist himself. I also think he would have liked to do more with the Jajouka musicians and probably making a new recording with the Gnaoua.Quote
Redhotcarpet
You hit the nail there. Nick Drake. Now this is the only way out from the Stones for someone like Brian I think. Not to become Nick Drake but to find a partner in songwriting and doing some kind of duo - singer songwriter - thing. Brian adding music and tunes to a Nick Drake type of songwriter. This could have been something good and lasting, still modern sounding - actually and it would have been realistic HAD he survived those first few years of Stones enormous success in the early 70s. On the other hand I dont think he would have coped with the Stones success. What, sitting in Cothchford watching the Stones tour of 1969 on TV? Just not happening.