i grew up listening to the radio every morning before i went to school, right from the age of 5, in 1974, i started watching top of the pops soon after and became aware of what was big in the charts and what wasnt.

but i never heard of the rolling stones till the early 80,s when at that time was a teenager with friends who were into the post punk/new wave of that era, some into marley, bowie, dylan but still no one ever talked about the stones.

wasnt till live aid in 1985 that i discovered mick jagger was the rolling stones lead singer and also a solo artist and yet i still didnt know the rolling stones were still an active band, i thought they had split up in the 70,s, they just seemed to irrelevant to the main stream singles market. friends my age were not interested in them, some hadnt heard of them and it wasnt till they announced steel wheels and tour that i could have a discussion with other fans. when i got into the stones in 1987, buying records often met with embarrasment and jokes, usually about their age, nothings changed in that regard.

stones have seen many bands come and go yet have been there themselves for 57 years, not always relevant but still ongoing, at least live anyway.

I see them as hangers on, both to glam rock and punk. In hindsight, I see they were charismatic, but I didn`t catch up on that as a heterophile male teenager. That`s the irony of it. In hindsight their charisma somehow makes them "the real thing", but that is seen from today. Their long longevity also make them seem "the real thing" from today`s viewpoint. However, they`ve always played sloppy at concerts, and often not in a good way.

you were right, in the 70’s Coke was the real thing.

Coke in the 60's too boy …….



ROCKMAN

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wonderboy

But to what the original poster said, if you were a teenager in 1975, the Stones were not your band. Nothing wrong with that -- every 10 years the kids get into something new. And if a band is lucky, it has 10 years where it really matters.
The Stones had more than that, so good for them.

I was a teenager in '75 and I went with a slightly older cousin to see them in Toronto that year. Of course I knew the Stones and bought their records starting with Ya-Ya's But that concert, lotus stage and all...was just another concert at the time. And while I love telling people today that I was at that one, it didn't make any more of an impression than Dylan/Rolling Thunder, Jeff Beck, The Faces or Rush that I saw that same year. Lol, I'm the biggest Mick Taylor fan now but I saw Ronnie twice that year....

Are people really this bored ???

The Stones were waiting for the '70s, especially Mick.

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Rockman


Coke in the 60's too boy …….

nice shirt right?

i read on the internet that the fretless bass was inspired by the Coke bottle.

stiff collar …..



ROCKMAN

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His Majesty

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Chris Fountain

Thanks for the reply and I understand where you are coming from (slang).

The Rolling Stones was defined by three particular people in combination. It didn't exist until those three met and were in a band together.

Brian, Mick and Keith. Their musical and personal relationships in combination. Or as Keith said in 1977 those three together was "The emotional engine behind the whole thing.

What came after is a different band. The music is real in it's own way, but not as The Rolling Stones.

Again, akin to The Beatles without George. Even if the music that followed was great, amazing and even better to some... it's not really The Beatles.

I have to partly disagree, HM. In my early 60s days I felt that B, M and K were the ones who could bring out their talents so well, because they had the, by far, best rhythm section, Bill and Charlie "behind them".
Non of their competion, not even the Beatles, could come up with such a solid unity. Mick's voice was instrumental to their total output. As a unit the Stones stood out way above any other sixties band.

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Witness


I listen to all other Rolling Stones related albums and songs that I have got, except METAMORPHOSIS and solo albums by Bill Wyman. So I do n't buy that objection. Apparently, you had to go that far out to find any.><

Translation please.

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LazarusSmith
Well, the simple fact is that none of us really knows what "The Rolling Stones" is.

We do. Brian, Mick and Keith. All that they were in combination in a band is The Rolling Stones.

Remove any of those 3 and it's not The Rolling Stones, not really.

...

It's not Brian and Paul Pond (Jones) as The Rolling Stones didn't exist until Brian met Mick and Keith.

It' not Mick and Keith as The Rolling Stones didn't exist until they met Brian.

It's not Mick and Keith's songs as The Rolling Stones existed before they wrote and still existed in the covers they did even after they wrote. The songs are obviously very important!

Identity wise, musically and emotionally it was defined by the wonky musical and personal relationships between Brian, Mick and Keith.

...

Taylor rightly noted that it was essentially/effectively a new band in 1969... that was made especially obvious live.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2019-04-30 18:47 by His Majesty.

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noughties
...just old school. Blame it on all the new bands back then.

The change occurred during the early 70's, and very quickly. The band of STICKY FINGERS was still about the most relevant band in the world, especially since the Beatles was gone. The band of GOATS HEAD SOUP was that of old farts - and many (especially rock critics) asked why didn't the Stones follow the path of the Beatles. To avoid such a criticism, EXILE, being artistically exhaustive and stylistically 'out of date', would have been a great final testament to stop an outstanding career. Just before people starting seriously asking questions of their relevance (and of their age).

That of the Stones being and remaining still very popular, and them outselling not just themselves but many younger, relevant acts and heroes of the day, didn't matter. So did Sinatra, Elvis and other old farts during the sixties when the The Beatles, The Stones and Dylan ruled the world.

I guess for Rolling Stones fans, especially the diehards like us here, the 70's were substantive years for the band in their story, especially as a live act, but for the rest of the world the band's been a 60's act, and always will remain to be. Their biggest legacy still is captured in the fundamental question of pop music: 'The Beatles or The Stones?'.

However, the issue of 'being relevant', what the hell that supposed to mean really? That of 'belonging to the zeitgest or reflecting it', yeah, but what that supposed to say in the context of pop music? I can't see much else than that the kids (and the critics who have their ear on the trends and always hungry for novelty) like one's stuff. Otherwise one is doomed to be an old fart. And nothing wrong in that. Most of great music is and has been always something else than 'relevant'. Namely, wouldn't it be horrible if the greatness of music to be judged by what the (masses of) teenagers think of it?

With the Stones, I think the 70's were the most terrible times in regard to 'relevance issue', because after ruling the pop music for almost a decade - being a very manisfestation of relevance - they were first time facing the fact of being 'yesterday's papers' as far as new trends go. They never been or looked as 'old farts' as they did back then. But they outlived all that and more; the whole point of the relevance issue has been totally irrelevant for them for ages. Damn, they have outlived the whole era when rock music altogether had relevance, and still they are here...

- Doxa



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2019-04-30 20:25 by Doxa.

Like most of the world, I was a Beatles fanatic in the 60s. The Stones were just another British Invasion group. Satisfaction was great, but just another garage rock song among many treasures from that period. I thought of them as a pop single group, and remember hearing Heart of Stone, but didn't know what the blues were, so it didn't really register.

Jumping Jack Flash, in the spring of '68, got my attention, and Honky Tonk Women in the summer of '69 I really enjoyed. Still, they were in the shadow of the Beatles. Meanwhile a whole new palette of artists like Cream, Hendrix, Zeppelin, came along that pushed the idea of a singles group aside.

I finally requested Let It Bleed for my Christmas album, 1969. I didn't get it. Too dark, too adult for me. Meanwhile I was starting to hear songs I didn't remember among the riches of the mid-60s, like Dandelion and Ruby Tuesday. Then a friend's older brother, with a kick ass stereo system, put on Ya Yas and I was hooked. I finally got it.

A girl I knew was a Stones fan and let me borrow their back catalogue. I'm a King Bee hit me hard. I knew it was something more authentic. Maybe the ultimate Stones moment of the early 70s for me was hearing Brown Sugar on a jukebox in a pool hall. The bass vibrating off the wall, everything about the song was wonderful. And, with the Beatles gone, they took up the mantle, for me, as the world's most popular group. (Although Led Zeppelin were very, very big).

After Exile I knew they were the real thing, all right. But I also appreciated how they could be pop chameleons and successfully (almost always) could adopt whatever trend was going, and filter it through the Stones sound.

The Stones kind of earned some of their derision in the mid-70s. GHS was lukewarm, compared to the previous four studio albums. IORR was only slightly better, and seemed to be making fun of rock and roll, something many of us were still taking seriously. Black and Blue was considered a rip off with only 8 cuts. And Love You Live was a nadir for the time, excepting the El Mocambo side.

Thankfully Some Girls restored their luster and greatness. Underneath all that gloss they are the real thing. Torn and frayed for sure. But Blue and Lonesome proved it's all still there, the hard shiny diamond first polished by Brian and Keith.

Nice!

Those two posts...by Doxa and 24FPS...perfectly describe what the general impression was from your basic teenager in the early '70's...in North America, anyway.

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His Majesty

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LazarusSmith
Well, the simple fact is that none of us really knows what "The Rolling Stones" is.

We do. Brian, Mick and Keith. All that they were in combination in a band is The Rolling Stones.

Remove any of those 3 and it's not The Rolling Stones, not really.

...

It's not Brian and Paul Pond (Jones) as The Rolling Stones didn't exist until Brian met Mick and Keith.

It' not Mick and Keith as The Rolling Stones didn't exist until they met Brian.

It's not Mick and Keith's songs as The Rolling Stones existed before they wrote and still existed in the covers they did even after they wrote. The songs are obviously very important!

Identity wise, musically and emotionally it was defined by the wonky musical and personal relationships between Brian, Mick and Keith.

...

Taylor rightly noted that it was essentially/effectively a new band in 1969... that was made especially obvious live.

I like the "wonky musical and personal relationships" part and certainly the fact that the band already "made it" with their dominantly coversong albums. But when I listen to the unofficial "stuff" they produced during 1962 and very early 1963, it didn't surprise me that, after all those temporary sit-ins, both Brian and Keith WANTED Charlie along Bill to really be able to put forward the kind of music they really wanted. But yes, Brian, Keith and Mick did set the tone through their sort of common interest in the blues/early rock 'n roll.

well i was a teenager in 75 too.
I was also near 25 years old at the time, and sometimes there were remarks about that from my girlfriend ex.

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georgie48

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His Majesty

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Chris Fountain


Could it Be 2002 licks tour? Voo doo Lounge 1994 or 1969 which GYYO certainly proves a point. These tours seem "Real" if this is the measuring stick.

None of those are the real Rolling Stones.

The last real Rolling Stones tour was the tour of Europe in 1967.

...

Jones leaving and Taylor coming onboard = a new band. Or as Taylor said. "Effectively a new band".

It's akin to The Beatles replacing George with Taylor. It's not really The Beatles anymore.

Which would mean that the Beatles didn't play in the Netherlands on June 6, 1964 because Jimmy Nickol (?) replaced Ringo Starr ???

Nor did The Beatles tour Australia then as Ringo wasn't there (at least for some shows if memory serves...)

Rod

A temporary stand in is quite a different thing to a permanent replacement.

No Brian. No Keith. Is it The Rolling Stones?

1969 - It Hurts Me Too.

[www.youtube.com]

the good news is that boredom is under-rated.

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His Majesty
No Brian. No Keith. Is it The Rolling Stones?

1969 - It Hurts Me Too.

[www.youtube.com]

No

No Brian. No Keith. Is it The Rolling Stones?

1970 - Stop Breaking Down.

[www.youtube.com]

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marianna
The Stones were waiting for the '70s, especially Mick.

How could you not agree? Think of the jumsuit and the make-up and all the antics that Oscar Wilde would have loved. Mick sure was glam. What a flip-side the 60s.

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His Majesty
No Brian. No Keith. Is it The Rolling Stones?
1969 - It hurts me too
1970 - Stop Breaking Down.

[www.youtube.com]

I have this, maybe weird, feeling, that The Rolling Stones of the 60s have created such a powerful musical "spirit", so powerful, that even when Brian and/or Keith were not around, "the others", even with some outside "help", were able to translate that original spirit in songs, making them feel like being real Rolling Stones songs.
Well, at least my brain is filled whith Rolling Stones spirit ...

Interesting post that I at least in part agree with.

...

Performance as a film and it's soundtrack is very much in tune with the weird and menacing vibe of late 60's stones.

The music by Jack Nitzsche seems in part like a continuation of some of the themes and ideas covered in TSMR with some of the feel from Beggars and LIB. Experimental, wordly, dark, hidden.

The character Turner allows Mick to become something other, to tap in to everything that the stones have encountered up to that point. That his character has some of Brian and Keith in it adds to the whole stones connectivity.

Some are of the view that Mick and Keith subsumed aspects of Brian. Did Mick also, to a lesser degree, also do the same with Keith?

Is Jagger the most important aspect in all of this?

Is Mick Jagger the true 'voice' of The Rolling Stones?

...

Given the above, is it feesible that Rolling Stones projects not involving any member of The Rolling Stones could tap in to the aforementioned spirit and create authentic Rolling Stones music? If there is a cut off point, what is it?

...

Witness once came up with a point about there being a Rolling Stones collective. A interesting way of looking at things and again one that I can at least partially agree with. There is a noble roll call of musicians who helped manifest Rolling Stones music, even within the 'Brain Jones era' from initial idea to completed released works.

All food for thought.

...

Memo From Turner is one of absolute my favourite songs/recordings by anyone. I totally get why some hear and feel it as The Rolling Stones. It's very potent and very much has a lot of the spirit you talk of.

[www.youtube.com]

Is it The Rolling Stones? I'm not so sure, but does it matter?

No. It's great music.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2019-05-02 19:49 by His Majesty.

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His Majesty

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noughties
...just old school. Blame it on all the new bands back then.

Well, there is a degree of fakeness to them. A coldness too. Even ridiculous.

White boy blues and all that.

A lot of their stuff sounds cool, but is quite lacking in any real emotion. But, that aloofness is a notable part of their whole image and sound.

It shouldn't work, but more often than not it does... and then some.

A strange band really. That's why I like them.

Saying they lack in any real emotion is a bold statement. While the Stones can be very sloppy at times, sometimes sounding like absolute crap, they have this whole other side to them where they sound so beautiful, with worlds of emotion that it puts tears in my eyes. Why are the Stones the greatest? They're music is classic, has attitude, aggression, emotion, and last but not least....timeless.