Haven't seen this posted here before. YouTube has the complete BBC Documentary on Mick, Keith and Ronnie's visit to Morocco for the recording of CONTINENTAL DRIFT off of STEEL WHEELS. Mick sitting and talking about Brian Jones with the great, late writer/artist PAUL BOWLES ("THE SHELTERING SKY") in his Tangiers apartment, plenty of Morocco footage, really interesting stuff (especially if you're a huge Morocco nut like me). It's in 5 parts of about 9 minutes each (parts 2 to 5 are on the sidebar). Here's part one (would love to have a DVD of this entire special):



Leave a comment about what you think of it....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-08-27 21:53 by HelterSkelter.

Is anybody checking this out? It's great !!!

I posted this documentary over in the Hot Stuff section months ago: [www.iorr.org]

Nevertheless; thanx a lot !
Nice stuff!

Helter....thanks for the heads-up. Excellent.
I had seen bits and pieces before....makes me wish
I'd gone to Morocco with the in-laws a few years ago.

The photoshoot in the final scenes (Prt 5) was fun too....Albert Watson I believe (maybe not).
I think that bit was in New York. The finished pix were by AW for RS magazine.

(i have to admit...one of the first scenes in Part One... made me think of Borat)


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



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-08-27 23:04 by sweet neo con.

sweet neo con Wrote:
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>
> (i have to admit...one of the first scenes in Part
> One... made me think of Borat)

Give me your tears, Gypsy!

Good stuff, thanks for posting HS.

(btw had the same thought re Borat)

Fun to watch except for the pipes

__________________________

Best part is Keith climbing up and lying on the roof to check out the sound coming from down underneath....

what's his name who plays Borat MUST have seen this at some point

Thanks for posting...

Sadly the aspirations of Bachir Attar caused a rift amongst the master musicians. I think they've resolved these issues now though resulting in two separate groups.

This is the musicians who actually stay in the village and are currently lead by Ahmed Attar: [joujouka.net]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-09-10 15:02 by His Majesty.

>> Albert Watson I believe (maybe not). <<

i'm 94% sure it was John Stoddart who did that fine photo shoot.
a cool documentary indeed - i especially admire "and then everything gets blurry" :E

Great footage - how young Keith looked back then ;-)

yeah, interesting. one complaint though: doesn't mick look awful with that haircut?

I'd love to see it - hope it shows up on DVD or is around when I set up my computer speakers. Dig the Joujouka crew, and rilly dig Paul Bowles. Him & Burroughs sipping mint tea and smoking kif, a faithful native boy by their sides circa 1954. PB's memoirs filled with juicy gossip about most every major 20th century writer/poet/painter/etc...

it is around on DVD, JohnR

Well that's great - boot or legit?

boot - if you ask for it over in "hot stuff"
i'm sure someone will be glad to help you :E



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-09-10 21:47 by with sssoul.

Excellent, very interesting - Thanks!

They should go more often on business trips together while they are not on tour.

I get the impression that this documentary was, at least on Mick's part, somewhat of a tribute/nod to Brian Jones. It was nice to see Mick saying some decent things about Brian.

john r Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd love to see it - hope it shows up on DVD or is
> around when I set up my computer speakers. Dig the
> Joujouka crew, and rilly dig Paul Bowles. Him &
> Burroughs sipping mint tea and smoking kif, a
> faithful native boy by their sides circa 1954.
> PB's memoirs filled with juicy gossip about most
> every major 20th century
> writer/poet/painter/etc...


[www.iorr.org]

I'm going to Morocco in Nov/Dec. If Mick is around and wants to buy me a drink...I'll say sure.

>>doesn't mick look awful with that haircut?<<

I don't like it either. He didn't wear it in that style for very long, did he?

Hey it was 1989, give him a break. Bill wore his pants too high during '89 - 90, too...

Nice to hear them speak respectfully about Brian. Thanks, Helter... fascinating stuff.

Attar really nailed the intro on their warhorse "Zikraiyat-Abi"...

I've just watched this. The dvd is currently being seeded at dimedozen.

I can't remember them saying anything overtly respectful about brian. It seemed more that, partly by being out of their usual element, and partly because of the occasion, which was after all taking up brian's cue 20 years later, they're less inclined to be disrespectful. Their standard lines about brian sound thin out of the usual context of adulation. The rather flat direction of the film adds to this effect, too. The interview of Paul Bowles by mick is bizarrely staged, both lying down while mick drinks tea and asks notably circumspect questions.

The best thing about it is consequently how human mick and keith seem. They carry (some of) their own baggage, for starters! They also speak to each other, at least twice! In the long takes, you can see that keith seems slightly embarrassed that he and ron are just along for the ride, while mick is the main character of sorts but rarely the center of attention. Even in the several interviews with him, he's filmed to be somewhat distant and detached. He only enters the moment during the second recording session, when he's playing a drum with the group. He seems slightly puzzled the whole time, thinking something about the situation that he never discloses to the interviewer.

I wonder now if this something was the whole rift in the Jajouka/Jojouka group. A flaw in the film is that it's not at all aware of this, even if mick is. The whole idea for the stones to collaborate with the Master Musicians seems entirely to have come from Bachir, who was beginning his campaign to make the MMs a commercial recording and touring act.

I was hoping for more on the overdubbing of the Moroccan material onto the original Matt Clifford track back in New York. Instead there's just a brief episode of mick doing vocals, still seeming a little out-of-it, while again keith and ron twiddle their thumbs in the studio. But it's jarringly effective when the film then cuts to the Steel Wheels photo session--finally the band is all together and feeling comfortable, mick apparently cracking jokes under his breath--and compares it to the MMs back in their village, performing an annual ritual. This would have been more complex again if the filmmakers had made us aware of the attempt by Bachir to modernize the MMs... I don't know what to conclude about it, as a little research shows him to have been at least somewhat successful by this point--they do tour and have released a few albums--but the way the film is done, it suggests that once the stones leave, all is returned to normalcy in Jojouka, which was not at all the case.

Their 'strangeness' could have something to do with all the memories that could possibly have been stirred up from revisiting the place, the whole Brian connection etc.

you mean that guy at the beginning is NOT Borat?

>> Their 'strangeness' could have something to do with all the memories <<

yeah, i think they real clearly found it tricky to talk about the 1967 visit.
they sidestep the awkward stuff - quite rightly, given the aim of the document - but seem tense about it.
"then it all gets blurry" - yeah okay!

are you 2 alluding specifically to the romantic angst around Anita, discussed in another thread about this film, or more generally to brian's fate and the "blurry" times of 1967?

did any of the stones besides brian hear the MMs in Morocco before this, or was he the only one who made the trip to Jojouka?

let me clarify that what I called the "flat" style of the BBC direction is a positive, opposed to a slick or quick-cutting presentation of rock stars in "action." The estrangement and discomfort come through. For example, the film proper--after an ill-advised montage of orientalist images set to "Road to Morocco"--begins with a mick interview which however we first watch through a tiny monitor. Pan back to the actual hotel suite, where mick looks pale and distorted, pressed into the very corner of a sofa.

anyway, we can't be sure that the band's past is the only or even main thing on their minds. Their comments are certainly not rich in this vein, but suggestive at best ("blurry"). I wonder if they're not feeling queasy over how they're essentially being used by Bachir to enter into a dispute they have no stake in. It's interesting for a change to see them someplace it appears they'd rather not be and can't quite control, even though it's basically a vacation for keith and ron.