Quote
NathanLaze
great German mag, thanks a lot for the scans Exilestones!

I'm glad it's a great mag! I couldn't read a word of it and hoped people would like it. I'm also hoping these magazine article will help people get thought the Covid-19 Stay at Home.




































Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2020-05-29 21:15 by exilestones.

this one's great too, not least 'cause it is in English thanks again my friend!

A good read about the Stones' bass player, in Dutch only unfortunately:

[www.nrc.nl]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2020-06-16 16:40 by TheflyingDutchman.

W o w! Thank you exilestones!

Quote
Redhotcarpet
W o w! Thank you exilestones!

You're welcome. This magazine article thread I started during the shut down and could keep-up with it when I went back to work. I'll post more soon.

The Stones Roll On: A Scare in Boston; Success in Toronto; a Slip in NY
Shenanigans aside, the Rolling Stones bring their powerful road show to North America

By DAVE MARSH



New York — The scariest moment came in Boston, when overzealous fans grabbed the writhing, confetti-spitting dragon that appears at the end of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” yanking its head off. Jagger and percussionist Ollie Brown lost their grip on the head as it skittered across the stage, and the flying skull bumped Billy Preston into the front row seats. But the crowd was in good humor (more carnivorous sorts would have eliminated his solo spot) and tossed Preston back up.

This has been the sort of tour where beds are filled with ice cubes, mattresses soaked with beer (and the covers replaced so that an unsuspecting victim will come up soggy rather than snoozing) and a lady’s brown plastic handbag stuffed with a hamburger (everything on it, emphasis on the ketchup). In Toronto, Jagger even had to borrow a pair of green Henri Bendel bikini underwear after his jockstrap fell apart from the strain of touring. Similarly, the Stones have spent their off moments sightseeing everywhere from the Alamo to Niagara Falls. And, based on the two Toronto shows, the last stop before the six-show Stones-produced big deal of New York, they deserved every break they could get.

Consider the way he joined in the first place. “We were looking around and finally Woody said, ‘I’ll do it if you like,'” Mick Jagger explained. “So we said all right.”

“Where it changed,” Woody said later, “they were looking around and looking around and finally said, ‘Look, we aren’t gonna do the tour if you don’t do it.” So I said, well, it’s serious then, is it? I’d known all along that I’d like to do it, but I hadn’t dared to think about it too long. Same as they hadn’t, because they like our band as much as we like theirs. And I always think of the Faces before I do anything. But I thought, well, they can’t blame me, really.”

Onstage, Wood is as much Jagger’s foil as Keith’s. Jagger kicks, pokes and prods him, yanking him across the stage like a puppet, pretending to attack him savagely. How come you pick on him so much? I asked Jagger. “Welllllll, he picks on me, you know . . . We’re just doing this sort of David [Bowie] and Mick Ronson routine.”

Wood says he enjoys the whole thing. “I think Mick’s been dying to get his hands on another guitarist,” he noted with an air of comic confidentiality. “He came to me and said, ‘If I come and attack you . . . you don’t mind, do you?’ He really loves to make it look real.

“In Montauk, when we were rehearsing, we’d be sitting there playing and he’d suddenly come up and kick me. And he tried it on Charlie’s drums — once he never tried it again. Charlie did a mild flipout, said, ‘Listen I don’t unplug your mike lead, so don’t upset my drums. And while we’re at it, don’t keep buggin’ Ronnie.'”

The four trucks carrying the special gigantic mechanical stage arrived at Madison Square Garden from upstate Newburgh, where the platform had been used for rehearsals in an airplane hangar at the old military airfield there. Construction began at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, June 18th, and proceeded for the next 48 hours. On Friday morning at eight, the light, rigging and equipment trucks arrived. Work began in earnest to get ready for the Garden party.

The hall was completely decked out by 6:30 p.m. Saturday, when dress rehearsal was due to start. Strings of blue Christmas tree bulbs were cast across the Garden ceiling, where they winked on and off not so much like fireflies as a used car lot or carnival midway; 350 ten-foot leaves made of white gauze with silver foil trim (like the back of the stage petals) were suspended randomly from the roof. With the conical tent covering the band’s equipment, the hydraulically powered petals, which would fold down to reveal the Stones and form the six-pointed star stage, gave the empty arena the general appearance of an Apollo launch, an impression augmented by the headsets of the 100-odd crew members.

Manager Peter Rudge paced the Garden floor nervously; his sudden jumpiness was surprising. In Toronto, he had been extraordinarily open, even letting a reporter sit in while he made a long, wise-cracking mid-afternoon telephone call to his New York office. “Tell him,” he told one of his assistants about a complaining promoter, “that if he doesn’t knock it off, he’ll never get another Golden Earring date,” a reference to the middle-level Dutch band Rudge also manages (as he does Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Who).

Later he offered an extensive overview of their finances. “Expenses are up 350% over 1972,” he explained. “That’s for a smaller touring party but a much bigger production. We’re getting from 60 to 70 to 80% of the gate, depending on costs.” The cost percentage breakdown was about 30% for taxes (52% in Toronto and the Canadian revenuers weren’t taking any foreign checks; they wanted cash), 20% for legal expenses, which includes hotels, the hall rent and slices for the various co-promoters (Bill Graham and the like), and 30% for other costs, which include travel, cartage for stages and equipment, salaries and other incidentals like Charlie Watts’ phone bill. That last expense must be enormous by now if Bill Wyman’s story that a homesick Watts spends at least an hour and a half on the phone to his wife (who’ll join him in Los Angeles) is true.

Based on an $11 million gross (which comes well within reason), the Stones will pay more than three million in taxes on this tour. The city of Cleveland alone received $25,000 for the single show there, which grossed $840,000 from 82,000 patrons. In the one show for which we were able to obtain definite gross information, the Milwaukee Stadium date, which packed in 54,000, the gross was $540,000; the Stones received 61.5%, about $350,000. The six Garden dates — 19,500 customers at an average of better than $10 a head — will gross in the neighborhood of $1,200,000.

Twenty percent of $11 million is going to make Mick Jagger’s statement to one journalist that “about all I’ll end up with is a white suit and $1000” seem a little silly. Dividing the profits five ways (with a full share to each of the four core members and a half share to Billy Preston and Wood — who, Rudge says “have incentives; they deserve ’em”), means that Jagger, Watts, Richards and Wyman will each net about $450,000 for the tour, Wood and Preston about $225,000. (Percussionist Ollie Brown is apparently on straight salary.) Assuming 50% income taxes, which is reasonable, that leaves a six-figure net per man, a quarter of a million per Stone. Yet, as anyone who has seen Jagger leap about at top speed for two-and-a-half hours in temperatures approaching 100° will acknowledge, he earns it. So do they all.

It was a bit past 7:00 p.m. on Saturday. Jagger circled aimlessly on the arena floor, dressed casually in jeans, white socks, black loafers and a belted tour jacket which, like many of his stage costumes, has a vaguely Oriental look and jibes with his recently begun study of karate. Jagger is in remarkable physical condition, and his movements onstage reflect the reason why. Many of them — particularly those which find him lifting one leg, storklike, for power-kick bursts — are drawn directly from the first kata of karate.

By 9:30, with the fine line of tension which characterizes even informal Stones performances amplified by the Garden’s union crew verging on double overtime, the band finally took the stage for rehearsal. Bill Wyman was somewhere else in the hall, but the band began to play with Keith on bass, Ronnie holding down the guitar by himself.

The song began with the pulse beat which characterizes so many Stones songs. Lost in idle reverie, presuming that at dress rehearsal the group would run through the entire show, I thought for just a moment that they were doing “Honky Tonk Women.” Suddenly the reality registered: That beat was particular and unmistakable. For the first time since Altamont, the Rolling Stones were playing “Sympathy for the Devil” in a remotely public appearance. Notions of hubris and violence reigned.

Relief came from the wings. The more than 100 steel drummers the Stones had retained for its opening act circled the stage, banging and dancing while Jagger moved among them, beer in hand, sunglasses perched atop his head, as casual as a man strolling in the park on Sunday. With their sublime arrogance, the Stones had found a way to do the one song presumably denied them, and to defuse it in the process.

The rehearsal dwindled. The Stones ran through “Cherry Oh Baby,” a reggae number they’d discovered in Jamaica, “Honky Tonk” — at last — and “All Down the Line.” The only problem was that the stage petals refused to drop. A problem in the hydraulic jacks stalled the music for a half-hour. At 11:45, the word came: The rehearsal was over.

The show opened Sunday night without the hanging leaves, which had been removed because they were considered ineffective, and because it was too much of a temptation to try to touch them from the balconies. At 8:35 the steel band began playing at the foot of the stage, 45 minutes after roving knots of drummers had begun circling the hall. At 9:15 they stopped, and the crowd booed when they started again. Four minutes later, the first of the cheers went up as those with line-of-sight seats spotted movement under the tent. It was an hour and 19 minutes after the scheduled start; the guitars had been plugged in and it was discovered that, according to one observer, “they were picking up every radio and television station in the city.” New guitars — Wood and Richards take six apiece to each gig — had to be brought to the Garden. At 9:30 came the inevitable chant — “We want the Stones,” as angry and petulant as the look on Mick’s mug — but it was not to be rewarded for another three minutes.

Then the tent went up, the petals dropped (smoothly and completely this time), and “Honky Tonk Women” began. But by the time they’d finished “All Down the Line,” the second song, it was clear that something was drastically amiss.

The bass was far too loud, and so was Jagger’s voice. In some parts of the hall, Preston’s keyboards drowned the guitars; in others, they couldn’t be heard at all. Worse, Jagger seemed uncomfortable with the new stage, which looked a lot larger than the regular one. He didn’t really know what to do with the space, and the wireless microphone which had given him such increased mobility in the other shows, couldn’t be used. “Happy” and “Tumbling Dice” sounded fit for a roller rink. It was awful — still, parts were sublime as Watts held it together and Richards riffed wildly, pulling Wood in from solos that suddenly seemed to reveal just what Mick Taylor’s advantages were.

After “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” the band didn’t leave the stage, even though the houselights were up and the crowd recognized that something special was going on. As Richards moved to bass and Wyman to guitar, the first throbbing note of “Sympathy” split the air. A firecracker, tossed from the crowd, erupted a foot from the stage.

From the wings a mystery guitarist appeared. In drape coat and a cap, with a big auburn beard, he at first seemed to be John Lennon with Clairol. Then the shouts of recognition went up. It was Eric Clapton — so besmirched with makeup that he was virtually unrecognizable even through binoculars. If the set had been a drag — easily the worst of the tour, though it was later learned that one of Wood’s amps had blown — this made up for it.

Finally, Wood descended on the elevator from which the 15-foot cock and the dragon appear, played through the resultant feedback and rose again with Jagger leering beside him. As the petals folded and the music concluded, it was Richards, though, who raced to the gap and waved goodbye.

The group adjourned to Atlantic director of artist development Earl McGrath’s apartment, overlooking Carnegie Hall. Prince Rupert Lowenstein had planned a spaghetti dinner for 20 but it wound up a revel for 80. Together with Clapton the band jammed in the McGraths’ bedroom until 7:30 Monday morning, causing Clapton to miss a singles session slated for 11:00 a.m.

The critical reception from New York’s daily press was wary, as though the reviewers couldn’t quite believe it. John Rockwell, in a 1500-word New York Times essay, spent his time avoiding the New York performance by enumerating the differences between it and the road shows. Ernest LeoGrande of the Daily News called the Stones “the Rolls-Royce of rock & roll,” but allowed that “the mechanics of the induced excitement showed through at times.” Only the Post’s Jan Hodenfield, always the most waspish of the lot, went all the way. Though they were “always a good little rock & roll band,” he suggested that “perhaps even the Rolling Stones have to move on.”

The Stones reportedly were not satisfied. McGrath claims otherwise, but Mick and Keith supposedly slipped out to check over the Garden’s sound system. At any rate, someone adjusted something, because Monday’s show was a vast improvement musically, even featuring the public debut of “Cherry Oh Baby.” Jagger rode the stage with much more ease, working off the tension between Richards and Wood’s taut, suddenly audible riffs. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” one of the tour’s consistent touchstones, was mesmerizing, the pure, breathtaking solos breaking over the waves of rhythm. The rockers had their punch back, particularly on “Tumbling Dice,” the tour’s centerpiece. And if Monday was still a bit calculated, Tuesday was inspired — although Richards was so exhausted — he’d had virtually no sleep for 48 hours — that he declined to sing “Happy” and slumped back to the hotel without playing on “Sympathy.”

This has been the kind of tour that survives its catastrophies. “All of a sudden Keith was gone,” Wood told a visiting Al Kooper back at the hotel, “Charlie leaned over and said, ‘Set the beat’ — and I couldn’t even remember the @#$%& thing! But I just tried to remember the record, and it went all right.”

As Bill Wyman put it: “We’ve settled into it now. Every night we learn something new.”

This is a story from the July 31, 1975 issue of Rolling Stone.

Thanks Exile! Great read

ROLLING STONES: July 20, 1975 Hughes Stadium



by BRYAN RAYBURN

In my 30 years of collecting music and memorabilia, tape trading, and recording concerts, I have amassed close to a million hours of historical artifacts, many of them uncirculated outside the hands of a privileged few. I was recently asked to assemble a database of all the Colorado performances I have within my archive, as well as stories surrounding them and the venues where they took place, many of which no longer exist, except in the hearts and minds of those who were in attendance. The first one that popped out was this local gem of when The Stones played in Fort Collins.


SETLIST: Honky Tonk Women* / All Down The Line / If You Can’t Rock Me / Get Off Of My Cloud / Star Star / Gimme Shelter / Ain’t Too Proud To Beg / You Gotta Move / You Can’t Always Get What You Want / Happy / Tumbling Dice / It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll (But I Like It) / Band Introductions / Fingerprint File / Wild Horses / That’s Life / Outta Space / Brown Sugar / Midnight Rambler / Rip This Joint / Street Fighting Man / Jumpin’ Jack Flash

The Rolling Stones “Tour of the Americas ’75” was originally intended to reach both North and South America. The plans for concerts in Central and South America never solidified, due to a combination of currency fluctuations and security concerns, however, the tour covered only the United States and Canada. This was the Stones’ first tour with new guitarist Ronnie Wood, after Mick Taylor had left the band. The Tour of the Americas ’75 was not in support of any newly released material, as it began more than seven months after the release of their last studio album at the time, It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll. The tour was officially announced on May 1, with the band performing “Brown Sugar” on a moving flatbed truck which rolled down 5th Avenue in New York City. After the Stones finished the song, the band jumped into limousines and quickly disappeared, thus the scheduled press conference afterwards was never attended. The tour spanned 46 shows between June 1 and August 8, and covered 27 cities.

On Sunday, July 20, the Stones played their second show in Fort Collins, CO (the first being November 7 1969, Moby Arena) to a crowd of 40,000 at Hughes Stadium, with Charlie Daniels as the opening act. Colorado State Patrol reported vehicles backed up on Interstate 25 from Harmony Road to the Windsor exit. Many people parked along the adjoining streets to avoid the one-dollar parking charge at the stadium. The day before, the local drive-in close by was renting out camping and parking, and a local band played through evening while people tailgated.

This was the infamous show when Elton John, dressed in an L.A. Dodgers windbreaker and cowboy hat, joined the band on stage for their opening number “Honky Tonk Woman,” which reportedly was the only Stones song he knew at the time. Mick Jagger later introduced Elton as “Reg from Watford.” After several songs, John reappeared and remained until “Midnight Rambler,” ten numbers later! Billy Preston and Ian Stewart were reportedly upset with John’s aimless noodling, as was Keith Richards, due to his presence hampering access to the keyboards throughout the performance. Numerous statements from concert-goers recall people booing, and the band having a difficult time getting him to leave the stage. After the show, the Stones even turned down Elton’s offer to take a helicopter to a ranch for a barbecue.

An article in the July 24, 1975 in The Rocky Mountain Collegian described it as, “a weekend that killed one, enraged many, and enriched a few.” The death came when a 19-year-old soldier who came to Fort Collins for the concert dove off a cliff by Dixon Dam and drowned. People began arriving in town Friday night and camped on just about any open area they could find. Many concert-goers stayed up all of Saturday night and stormed the stadium at 5:30 a.m. in an attempt to get choice seats, even though the concert was not scheduled to start for another 11 hours! Alvin Miller reported people camped on his property Saturday and Sunday and that there were destroyed sections of an electric fence.

This epic concert was one of only three shows to take place at our beloved Hughes Stadium; the first being The Beach Boys and Chicago on July 6 1975, and the last one, Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review with Joan Baez on May 23, 1976 for the recording of Dylan’s “Hard Rain” live album. This concert followed days of pouring rain, and the 25,000 in attendance consequently destroyed the stadium’s turf, which Barry Fey had to pay to replace. Following complaints from nearby stadium residents that the concerts were too loud, a judge granted an injunction on January 30, 1978, limiting concert noise to no more than 80 decibels at a nearby resident’s property line. Concert promoters said that these levels were effectively too low to stage an open-air concert, and so, that was the day the music died at Hughes Stadium.

Ian McLagan: Key Man
The Faces, Rolling Stones and New Barbarians player on his favorite instruments

By ROBERT PALMER


Keith Richards and Ian McLagan performing with the New Barbarians at Madison Square Garden in New York City on May 7th, 1979.
Ebet Roberts photo


I don’t know how to work synthesizers,” says Ian McLagan, a longtime member of the Faces who lately has been playing with the Rolling Stones and the New Barbarians. “When everybody started buying synthesizers I didn’t have the money, so l never got into that race. I have an ARP Pro Soloist, and that’s about as technical as I get.”

McLagan usually uses a Hammond B-3 organ with two Leslie speakers, a Steinway piano and “four or five” Wurlitzer organs, including an old flat-top model.

“I’ve had them all for years,” he says. “I brought the B-3 over to the United States on the first Small Faces tour, but I didn’t know that the electricity here was on a different cycle, and I spent the tour a half-tone flat.”

McLagan’s first keyboard was a Cembalet, which he describes as “the cheapest thing you could get that looked like a keyboard.” From there he moved to a Hammond: “When I first heard ‘Green Onions’ [the Booker T hit], I decided it was time to throw the Cembalet out the window. I went into the Hammond shop in London with absolutely no money and said I was interested in a C-100. They let me try one out at home for two weeks, so I moved the dining-room table out of the way and set it up. My dad freaked out, but for the two weeks I stayed in that room with the Hammond, a record player and a copy of the Green Onions album. By the end my dad had gotten used to the organ and I had talked the band into chipping in to buy one.”

Keith Richards Is Riding Out the Pandemic in His “Comfies”
A far-ranging conversation with the legendary Rolling Stones
guitarist on pandemic life, making music, his new box set, and, yes, his sweatpants.

BY GABRIELLA PAIELLA

November 9, 2020
Keith Richards playing guitar on a couch
Keith Richards in 2015.Everett Collection / Courtesy of Justin Wilkes for Netflix

Keith Richards has lived more than a few lifetimes in his 76 years. He’s ingested every substance known to man (and probably a few that aren’t), has spent much of the past several decades playing to massive crowds in every corner of the world, and generally done whatever it is that he wants. All of which makes 2020 a very un-Keith kind of year.

“I don't know about you, darling, but I'm just ducking and diving, hunkering down and trying to take care of the folks,” the legendary Rolling Stones guitarist tells me in his jovial, gravelly British lilt. He’s calling from his Connecticut home, where he lives with wife Patti Hansen, plus their two daughters and two dogs (one of whom makes an appearance during our conversation). To pass the time, he’s been writing songs and reading weighty seafaring tales, like the Master and Commander series by Patrick O'Brian and the Danish epic We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen. Pre-pandemic, the Stones were cutting their next album—“halfway in the works before shit hit the fan”—and in recent months, he’s finally been able to get back to the studio some.

On November 13, Richards is also releasing a reissue of Live at the Hollywood Palladium, a soulful and swaggering show he played with his band The X-Pensive Winos in December 1988. This was 30 years ago, when the Stones were in the midst of a hiatus and he and Mick Jagger were famously on the outs, so Richards found himself the lead singer of a new group. Beyond his musical career, it was a generally pivotal period in his life: He had recently gotten clean from heroin, reunited with his long-estranged father, and settled down with Hansen.



GQ: Two of the three new songs on the reissue are Stones tracks—“Little T&A” and “I Wanna Be Your Man.” How did you and the Winos approach Stones songs? Would you try to do them differently?


Keith Richards: Gabriella. Suddenly, I find myself having to do Mick Jagger's job and mine. I learned an awful lot really quickly about what it is to be the frontman and working with different guys and seeing how they would treat it differently. I've known these guys for years, I mean, the Winos weren't just thrown together. They were nurtured, like good wine.



To me, what was interesting was how they would approach it. They gave me so many new insights. Sometimes you can be deaf to things, or blind, so to get their take on these songs—I was open for business. At the same time, I'm learning how to sing and play guitar throughout a whole show, which took me a little while. But I enjoyed it so much and with such a great band. So versatile, the Winos. With the Stones we pretty much ... you do that, you play that, you play that. With the Winos I could turn around and three different guys can play drums.



What's the main difference to you between a solo Keith song and a Stones song?

I suppose I do write for Mick's voice to a certain extent, because I had never thought about writing outside of the Rolling Stones. I mean, one great band is enough.

But it was all a learning process for me, which I enjoyed immensely. And I think whatever Mick did in that period of time, those three or four years that we didn't do anything together, we got a fresh look at it. Maybe that was the whole point of us doing other things. I, personally, had no intention of doing anything outside of the Stones until 1986, when Mick decided he wanted to make movies. Hey, we both needed a break. I mean, I'm not going to put it on one guy or the other. We've been doing the Stones for a long time and everybody wanted to spread their wings a bit, I guess. Except Mick wanted to do it before I did.




I want to go back to that period in your life because, as you mentioned, the Stones were off. But it was a fascinating and pivotal period for many reasons: you'd recently gone off heroin, you'd reunited with your father, you became a family man with Patti, you were on the outs with Mick. How do you look back on that time now, 30 years later?

It was just a matter of energy, I suppose. Hey, I got kids and a new band. Why not have a new band?

When I think about it, there was a sort of déjà vu feeling of when The Rolling Stones first suddenly and miraculously and unexpectedly became The Rolling Stones. There was this feeling of rejuvenation. I felt it a few times in Jamaica later on, working with other guys. You feel a sort of roll of energy going amongst guys that you can't quite put your finger on, but I'm glad I'm here and I want to take part in this.



What has your day-to-day like been this year? How are you spending your time at home?

Well, I take the mask off. It's all a bit strange this year. It’s a unique situation, isn't it, for us all. No matter who you are. And I'm just doing my best and writing some songs because I do that anyway. That sort of happens without even trying. Not that they're any good, but, you know, it's what you do.



How are you killing the time otherwise?

I did do a session with [X-Pensive Winos drummer] Steve Jordan, two or three weeks ago in the city. Still working on the Stones album, which was halfway in the works before shit hit the fan. I was trying to progress a few things along, but there's not a lot one can really do except wait for the vaccine.




Has the pandemic changed the process of how you and Mick write songs? Do you send ideas or lines back and forth, or full songs? What's that process like?

I listen to other people. Most songs are written by being observant and just hearing what somebody else says. And it might be taken totally out of context as a certain phrase. I think I got “Satisfaction” out of a totally innocuous conversation with somebody else. I didn't hear that word a lot. You become susceptible to the way people react to each other. The tough thing about being a songwriter is, once you start, you can't stop, even if they're lousy songs.




Speaking of “Satisfaction,” that riff famously came to you in the middle of the night. Do you still get song ideas in your dreams?

How I wish. That was the most superb, lucky song ever. No, I've never quite dreamt up another one in the middle of the night. But that was very early days for me writing and just the idea that that could actually happen was incredible. I'm still waiting for the next dream, you know.




Many people have been comparing the year 2020 to 1968, and the Stones were very much at the center of 1968 culturally. What’s your most vivid memory from that year?

Hmm, ‘68. Yeah. I was so embroiled in recording, writing songs. I mean, in ‘68 I was only grabbing little bits of what was going on around, because things were changing incredibly in ‘68.

I guess I picked up on a bit. I was also unfortunately going into my blue period, which took me 10 years to get out of. I remember that I wrote “Gimme Shelter” and I was just writing, writing, writing, and recording. Also, I was with Anita Pallenberg, it was our first year together. Really, when it comes to it, I was just overworked and overloved.




What do you miss most about going on tour and playing live?

I just miss it because it's almost like a physical need. Your body kind of expects it, once you go out there on the road and make contact with everybody. And for this year, having it cut off is kind of weird, which is probably why I'm talking too much.




Does the band have any plans for the 60th anniversary, which is coming up in a few years?

Well, the plans are to still actually all be alive.

Apart from that, at our age, I don't know. I haven't heard of any plans, but I'm sure there are things being made. First off, I'm going to get through this year and see how we handle next year. Because I think at the moment, there are more problems than a Rolling Stones celebration. Although I'm very glad that we're all here, but I'll leave it at that if I can.





What have you been listening to during the pandemic? Have you rediscovered anything?

I do tend to listen to what I tend to listen to. I still listen to a lot of Otis Redding and a lot of Mozart. I listen to a lot of country blues still. It still hits me as being the essence of things, somehow, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Otherwise, new stuff...I know there are those of great talent out there. I don't know why I'm not hearing it. To me, records are sounding synthesized. It's all too manufactured for me at the moment. Even drum beats, where the guys do them on pianos.




So are there any contemporary or modern artists who you've enjoyed recently?

There are some brothers from Australia that I liked very much. Very soulful stuff. But I really couldn't put my finger on anybody and say, “this guy's fantastic” or “you should hear this.” I really think we are a bit oversaturated with so-called music at the moment.




What’s your favorite album made by someone in their 70s?

I'm sure Louis Armstrong made a couple. Muddy Waters. Basically, I'm a very roots man. I don't know who else has made 70 and still works, except me. I don't know what age people were when they did things, that's my problem. I don't even know quite honestly how old I am. It goes on and on.




What’s your pandemic style been like?

Very comfortable garments. Very casual, I don't dress up.




So Keith Richards is wearing sweatpants at home?

I call them comfies. Yeah. Very baggy soft things. And some Uggy boots.




Some ugly boots?

Uggies, you know.




Oh, Uggs, yeah.

The peasant-looking things.



Great description. So what’s your favorite Stones album?

Always hard to pick favorites. I would go anywhere between Beggar’s Banquet, Sticky Fingers, Let It Bleed, Exile on Main Street. And I will go also to Bridges to Babylon, which is, I think, much underrated. But I mean, that's when we were hitting our stuff and it was easy because we were working at home, we were still not thrown out of the country and having to duck and dive. So, it was easier to work then because we weren't exiles. But in actual fact, I really hate to pick out favorite things because they've all got something on them that is special to me. Quite honestly I love them all, some a little more than others. I think Steel Wheels was damn good and Voodoo Lounge too. But then, there's so many. I mean, I can't do that. I'll stick with my original: Sticky Fingers, Beggar’s Banquet, and Exile On Main Street. I'll cut it down for you. Exile On Main Street.





What's the state of the Stones album you're working on now? You said it was halfway along before the pandemic hit?

“Living in a Ghost Town,” which sort of epitomized the first wave of the virus, that was actually a part of what we were cutting. But it just was so glaringly obvious that it needed to come out when it did, we rush released it. But otherwise, yeah, we're halfway through, but sort of at the moment like everybody else, we're stuck.




Mhmm.

I've got a dog here who's barking. Excuse me for a moment. [In the background: Stop it. Come on, girl. Yes, who's my girl?]

I'm sorry about that.




All good, I’m surprised mine didn’t start barking during the interview.

I think it must be dinner time or something.




What's your dog's name?

This one's called Sugar. We've got two. The other one's called Honey. How imaginative, huh?




They must enjoy having you home all day.

Yeah. Yeah, they are. Yeah. And getting a little too fat maybe.




My last question is: people have been wondering in interviews when you're going to die for the last 50 years. How satisfying is it to still be here?

Every day is a pleasure. I mean, I don't wish to defy anybody's predictions and I'm really not interested in them. But I'll croak when I croak and everybody will know.

This interview has been edited and condensed.
[www.gq.com]

>I'll cut it down for you. Exile On Main Street.


>Every day is a pleasure. I mean, I don't wish to defy anybody's predictions and I'm really not interested in them.



jb

Mick Jagger’s Memoir Allegedly Exists, but You Can’t Read It
The rock star is said to have written it in the early 80s but doesn’t want it to be published.
BY KENZIE BRYANT

FEBRUARY 16, 2017





Former music journalist, current publisher John Blake penned a piece in Britain’s Spectator (via Vulture) claiming he has Mick Jagger’s lost memoir. The book was allegedly written in the early 1980s but wasn’t published at the time because it was “light on sex and drugs,” according to Blake.

Indeed, the sexiest, druggiest, and rock ‘n rolliest tidbit that Blake allows is the following: “Mick tells of buying a historic mansion, Stargroves, while high on acid and of trying out the life of horse-riding country squire. Having never ridden a horse before, he leapt on to a stallion, whereupon it reared and roared off ‘like a Ferrari.’ Summoning his wits and some half-remembered horse facts, he gave the stallion a thump on the forehead right between the eyes and slowed it down—otherwise the Stones’ story might have ended differently.”

Blake claims to have acquired the manuscript three years ago through a “mutual friend” and deems it “a perfectly preserved time capsule written when the Stones had produced all their greatest music but still burned with the passion and fire of youth and idealism.”

Blake writes that he’s tried to work with Jagger in order to get it published, and at first he was game, but as the publisher got more forceful about moving forward, Jagger’s mind changed and eventually “the steel gates clanged shut.” Whether the article is a means of putting pressure on Jagger to finally give the world what it so dearly wants or a last-ditch effort to get recognition for the golden egg he’s sitting on is unclear. Vanity Fair has reached out to Blake and Jagger for comment.

David Bowie & Mick Jagger
by Denis O'Regan

[www.youtube.com]