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DandelionPowderman
Dylan, Reed, Status Quo, Kiss and The J. Geils Band come to mind...
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seitanQuote
DandelionPowderman
Dylan, Reed, Status Quo, Kiss and The J. Geils Band come to mind...
...Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Patti Smith,
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Send It To me
Bono is now 52, but nobody seems to take note. No one is out there calling U2's last tour the "360 years old tour" or any of that crap. Mick was 47 when people were saying "Steel Wheelchairs" The Stones have to take all the age insults to pave the way for others. Eventually, all these snarky commentators will realize that people who play music play it their entire lives, and its not a big deal.
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roryg
It's strange seeing older shows and realizing you're older than the Stones at that time. As far as r'n'r age pioneers,however, there seems to be guy named Chuck Berry and some guys called the Beach Boys still doing their thing, so I wouldn't call the Stones the first to do this even in their musical genre.
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tattersQuote
roryg
It's strange seeing older shows and realizing you're older than the Stones at that time. As far as r'n'r age pioneers,however, there seems to be guy named Chuck Berry and some guys called the Beach Boys still doing their thing, so I wouldn't call the Stones the first to do this even in their musical genre.
I know. I thought they were ancient in 1978, which is natural enough, since I was 19 and Mick was 35, but now, of course, I look at photos from '78 and can't believe how young they look. Shit, I have a stepson who's almost the same age the Stones were in '78. Beach Boys and Stones are contemporaries, and yeah, the BBs have been on the receiving end of their fair share of "Shouldn't they be calling themselves Beach Men by now?" jokes, but Bill Wyman, born in 1936, is five years older than the oldest Beach Boy.
No one ever says of a black performer, "Will you look at that old fool? Why doesn't he just retire and save himself from further embarrassment." Why is that? Thirty years ago, white college kids like myself, who were thrilled at the prospect of seeing old bluesmen like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, could not even begin to imagine that Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger would one day be performing at those same ages, let alone that we would still be going to see them. I think it had something to do with our stereotypical notions that black people age more gracefully than white people, and are therefore never too old for anything. We just didn't think it was possible to be an old white man and still be cool. Until now.
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DandelionPowdermanQuote
seitanQuote
DandelionPowderman
Dylan, Reed, Status Quo, Kiss and The J. Geils Band come to mind...
...Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Patti Smith,
Iggy gets his share of "wrinckle rock"-comments in the press, though.
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DGA35
Reason the Stones always get mentioned is because no one has been around as long as they have! I remember in 81, news articles were mentioning the Stones being too old and Mick being over the hill at age 38!
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nonfilter
The Red Hot Chili Peppers are the same age as The Stones on Voodoo Lounge. Ridiculous. They took the fall for everybody, but Dylan is older.
[www.non-filters.com]
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swissQuote
tattersQuote
roryg
It's strange seeing older shows and realizing you're older than the Stones at that time. As far as r'n'r age pioneers,however, there seems to be guy named Chuck Berry and some guys called the Beach Boys still doing their thing, so I wouldn't call the Stones the first to do this even in their musical genre.
I know. I thought they were ancient in 1978, which is natural enough, since I was 19 and Mick was 35, but now, of course, I look at photos from '78 and can't believe how young they look. Shit, I have a stepson who's almost the same age the Stones were in '78. Beach Boys and Stones are contemporaries, and yeah, the BBs have been on the receiving end of their fair share of "Shouldn't they be calling themselves Beach Men by now?" jokes, but Bill Wyman, born in 1936, is five years older than the oldest Beach Boy.
No one ever says of a black performer, "Will you look at that old fool? Why doesn't he just retire and save himself from further embarrassment." Why is that? Thirty years ago, white college kids like myself, who were thrilled at the prospect of seeing old bluesmen like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker, could not even begin to imagine that Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger would one day be performing at those same ages, let alone that we would still be going to see them. I think it had something to do with our stereotypical notions that black people age more gracefully than white people, and are therefore never too old for anything. We just didn't think it was possible to be an old white man and still be cool. Until now.
Well, the old black dudes did it in part because they had to. They needed the work.
To us, they were cool. To them, they were paying their bills the way they know how,
as well--of course--as reclaiming the buzz of performing before a [usually] appreciative
audience.
Then again...another thought is people like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett were of the
generation before the Stones and they played into their later years.
So, maybe it's not "cool" that old white men keep playing, it's that they are as meaningful
to us, in the way Frank Sinatra etc were to the older generations.
And, of course, now looking back, those guys were cool as shit.
I loved your post before this one, tatters, because you really did nail it there, too.
I didn't mind the Stones being older than me when I was really little because, well,
everyone was older than me. But when I got to be 14 or 15. friends were starting bands,
we were sneaking into The City (i.e., NY) to witness and partake in the insane scene
unfolding there, and we were identifying with a totally different musical and cultural
scene than the Baby Boomers. Furthermore, our parents thought they had finally
figured out the rock n roll landscape, but when punk and new wage and then hip hop
emerged it was once again OUR bastion, where they could not follow us and we could
explore our teenage glory and angst unfettered - inscrutably to adults. At that
point, Mick Jagger suddenly became "ancient" to me - and irrelevant - as did all of
the Stones at that point, by association. What a laugh, eh?! How arrogant we are in
adolescence
I remembered the following story when driving down to Los Angeles from San Francisco
for the filming of fan-video interview. Mick was at a party I was at, the summer I was 15,
and he was apparently in an antisocial mood, and my friend and I thought he was behaving
ridiculously, but when he walked by at one point I tapped him on the back or tugged
on his jacket, and wheeled around and made a face at us and stuck his tongue out in a
non-friendly manner, and we just LAUGHED because he seemed like a Mr Grumpy Pants, when
everyone else was having a blast. He was not the only or even the biggest celebrity
there that night, arguably. It was NY theatre/fashion/literary world party in the Hamptons.
Today, I wouldn't tug on Mick Jagger's coat tails, and if he made a face and pretended
to vomit at us, I would be totally devastated, but at that time we just saw it as further
evidence of his being lame, and we were the cool ones.
And to us cool at that time meant going to see and listen to bands that none of the [older]
Rolling Stones-type fans had ever heard of. Something new and uniquely OURS. And at that
point Mick suddenly morphed more into, like, one of my Dad's younger brothers than someone
I identified with, or would cast youthfully lustful eyes upon, as a young teenaged girl is wont to do.
I had to separate from the Stones in my mid-teens because there was so much new going
on I didn't care about the past. So, I loved Tattoo You, but it was almost like "wow,
can you believe those old guys did something we like this much!"
I'm so glad I grew out of that and was able to return to the Stones. In the same way as when
in post-adolescence you start liking your parents again, and actually see them as
pretty fricking cool!
- swiss